London: the capital city of the world?

London is evolving into the capital city of the world - so says Boris Johnson. With foreign money flowing into London like never before, the city has become a global hub - says the BBCs Evan Davis in his 2014 documentary, "Mind the Gap: London Vs the Rest".

Officially, London is a city of just over 7 million people. In reality, London sprawls beyond its political boundaries to form a global megacity of over 13 million people. Many of these people have been "sucked" from all over Britain and across the globe. London not only towers over the rest of Britain, but it also ranks among the most powerful and influential of world cities.

There is no doubt that London is at the core of the capitalist world system (see Wallerstein). It takes labour and other resources from the rest of Britain and the world. Previously London established its dominance as the head of a global superpower that was once the British Empire. Today, the empire strikes back and London sucks in talented people from former colonies and beyond. For example, London is France's sixth biggest city - it has more French people than Bordeaux.

London maybe the grand old lady of megacities, but it is still attracting young innovative people because it gives them a place to collaborate with talented people from across the planet. This was not always the case, the population of inner London fell by 20% in the 1970s. Then, geographers feared London would decline in much the same way as Detroit has today. In contrast, technology and a knowledge-based economy is now driving London's aspiration to be the capital of the world.

The Francis Crick Institute is the largest biomedical research centre in Europe. It employs over 1,500 people, of which 1,250 will be Nerdy research scientists. London brings leading scientists and puts them alongside world class financiers. London ranks alongside Hong Kong and New York as one of the world's leading financial centres.

King's Cross Station. Source: Maria Giulia Tolotti.

Google's new building, located between King's Cross and St Pancras stations, is expected to employ 4,500 Nerds at a cost of over £1bn. That's £1bn injected into the London economy even before the doors open.

London's Tech City

According to Tech City News, London's Tech City is worth an estimated $2.4bn. "London is now the third largest startup innovation system after New York at $4.6bn and San Francisco at c$11.2bn". What was once a relatively low-cost location on the east-side of London's financial district has become the heart of the capital's technology sector. At its core is 'Silicon Roundabout', a modest way to describe the focus of 2,669 innovative tech startup companies that are driving London's economy forward - see TechBritain.com.

London's Technology Ecosystem. Source: Tech City Map.

Using information from over 1,300 tech companies, the map (above) shows the flow of Twitter data between members of the workforce employed in this East London creative community. Click on the map to discover that Old Street, with its famous Silicon Roundabout is at the centre of this cluster. The long red arm that extends away to the southeast points to the growing significance of Canary Wharf and the Greenwich Peninsula as attractive locations for tech companies.

Mapping Twitter feeds illustrates the way London provides a venue that enables people to network and collaborate. Creativity and collaboration, it seems, are powered by the geography of the megacity.

Data supplied by Tech Britain confirms that London has a significant competitive advantage, for networking, over Britain's regional tech hubs. According to Tech Britain, in 2014, Manchester has only 198 tech startups compared to London's 2,669.

London is the World's Busiest Internet Hub

Click on the map for more information and analysis from TeleGeography.

Research by TeleGeography shows that Europe and North America dominate the global landscape as the two largest internet clusters. London with an internet capacity of over 11 Tbps, is the world's leading internet hub. London, Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam are at the core of global internet connectivity. New York is ranked in 5th place.

Europe - 40.7 Tbps
Canada & USA - 16.6 Tbps
Asia - 9.6 Tbps
Latin America - 5.1 Tbps
Africa - 571 Gbps.

When it comes to bandwidth, Europe dominates the world. This is because of the high volume of traffic between European countries - over 50% of the top internet highways are between European cities. Previously, London-New York was the busiest of all the internet highways. This was superseded by the route between London and Amsterdam.

London's Global Ethnoscapes

London is a global hub that attracts Nerd's from across the planet. Graduates account for 58 per cent of the city’s work force, compared with only 38 per cent in the rest of the country.

Not only are Londoner's better educated, they are most likely to be global citizens with roots stretching across the globe. Fewer than 45 per cent of the capital's population are white British. Almost one in four of London's residents are not British passport holders. According to London's government, over 300 languages are spoken in London schools with Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Cantonese and Mandarin most common.

London flourishes on the back of the talents of the people who go there to work. "London's population is younger than in the rest of the UK, nearly two thirds (63 per cent) of Londoners are aged under 44, compared to just over half (53 per cent) in the UK as a whole" (www.londoncouncils.gov.uk).

Young, Nerdy and globally connected, the people of London generate 20 per cent of the income of the United Kingdom.

Numpty Nerd says: This case study will be of interest to those who are concerned with global interactions and disparity within Britain. In particular, it highlights the relationship between core and periphery - between London, Britain and the world. Technology (ICT) and the knowledge economy are identified as key drivers in creating disparity and shaping global interactions.