NYC with London-type boroughs and London with NYC-type boroughs

[10023]

Originally Posted by Docere

They didn't feel that way about Tower Hamlets and Hackney?

Well yes, but that's a different situation. There are places south of the river that have been gentrified for some time (Battersea, Clapham) that the Sloanes won't go to out of principle. It's more of a thing that people say ("oh, you mean south of the river?"). Hackney and Tower Hamlets are a world away by comparison, lots of immigrants, etc.

And actually, one goes to both more often because Canary Wharf is in Tower Hamlets, and Shoreditch and Hoxton are in Hackney. East London is often considered Brooklyn-esque (I sometimes refer to it as Euro-Brooklyn as a joke), but those are also a lot like downtown hoods in Manhattan. They're also way too central to be considered anything but Manhattan-like.

[johnnypd]

Originally Posted by Docere

Obviously NYC is denser etc. So it's a very rough sketch, not an exact one and not to be taken too literally.

I'd say Central London is the "Manhattan" with a bit of Brooklyn thrown in. The East End itself can be a sort of Lower East Side/Williamsburg hybrid.

NW London = Queens (most multicultural, largely interwar suburbia) with a bit of Brooklyn.

NE London = Bronx (most deprived cluster of boroughs, lots of housing projects).

South London is harder. SE London is the the whitest borough and mostly working and lower middle class and the least densely populated. It's Staten Island but with old-stock Brits instead of Italian Americans.

SW London = no clue. Mostly middle to upper middle class. Not very diverse, but more so than SE London.

Much of SE London is very multicultural and multiracial, especially Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham. The further out you go the more "white british" it gets. Bromley/Bexley would make a good staten island comparison.

The southern half of Hackney up to Dalston & the Bethnal Green bit of TH are pretty gentrified these days, not just the Hoxton or Shoreditch areas. It's still pretty rough by London standards, though not really by US standards, and has lots of social housing (though even former council properties sell for a lot these days). But the trendiest bars, clubs, craft beer pubs, hip restaurants, independent coffee shops and artisanal boutiques in London are typically to be found in these areas.

[Docere]

Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham were part of the county of London. By SE London, I meant the area taken from Kent (Bexley and Bromley).

[10023]

Yeah I wouldn't call Southwark or Lambeth "SE London", at least not the parts typically referred to by those names (Southwark the neighborhood is a lot smaller than Southwark the borough, for instance). People take the Jubilee line to Southwark and walk across the bridge to work in the City... it's central by any definition. But so is downtown Brooklyn, so I kind of like that comparison.

[johnnypd]

it's all in the postcodes



I'd agree that the most western parts and those by the riverside are central though. However it is amazing how underdeveloped south of the river is considering it's a short walk to the West End & the City. Surely it can do better than a ribbon of interest by the Thames and a handful of engaging streets.

[10023]

Johnny, I get how postcodes work. But the postcodes divide everything into north, south, east and west (or southeast, southwest, northwest, but oddly not northeast). I guess there's a West Central and East Central, but that's a tiny area. I wouldn't call Southwark or Elephant & Castle "Southeast London" any more than I would call Soho or Mayfair "West London", W postcodes notwithstanding.

And I thought south of the river was less developed partly because it had been wharves and industry, and therefore got bombed heavily and redeveloped into council flats. And of course historically, crossing the river was more difficult than it is today.

[johnnypd]

The W postcodes are known as "West London" - If a news story breaks in Mayfair the tv crews will refer to it as "West London". Though I don't really agree with this description it's from the days when "central" meant the City and everything outside of that was N,E,S or W.

As for NE postcodes, they're used by my hometown Newcastle (and environs).

[10023]

^ Interesting. Guess I have never sent or received anything from Newcastle.

Anyway, fair enough, and don't mean to belabour the point, but I don't think we need to stick to a statutory definition here. If the point is to compare parts of London to Manhattan and other NYC boroughs, one can't consider anything outside of WC/EC not to be "central". The WC and EC postcodes have a population of about 80k people.

[Docere]

Some London stats. Split (roughly) by former county:

London (Inner/Central): 2,925,548


City of London and boroughs of Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, Westminster

Ethnicity: 60.5% White, 11.1% Asian, 16.4% Black

% with level 4+ qualification: 45.5%

Middlesex (NW): 2,340,391

Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Hillingdon, Hounslow

Ethnicity: 53.3% White, 23.9% Asian, 12% Black

% with level 4+ qualification: 35%

Essex (NE): 1,268,346

Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Newham, Redbridge, Waltham Forest

Ethnicity: 52.1% White, 26.3% Asian, 14.1% Black

% with level 4+ qualification: 24%

Surrey (SW): 1,100,267

Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames, Sutton

Ethnicity: 69.3% White, 13.1% Asian, 10% Black

% with level 4+ qualification: 38.3%

Kent (SE): 541,389

Bexley, Bromley

Ethnicity: 83.3% White, 4.8% Asian, 7.1% Black

% with level 4+ qualification: 28.3%

[Docere]

Inner north (former London County): 1,496,742

City of London and Camden, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Tower Hamlets, Westminster

Ethnicity: 61% White, 14.3% Asian, 11.2% Black

% level 4+ qualification: 47.4%

Inner south (former London County): 1,428,806

Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Wandsworth

Ethnicity: 59.9% White, 7.7% Asian, 22.4% Black

% level 4+ qualification: 43.5%

Outer north: 3,608,737

Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Newham, Redbridge, Waltham Forest

Ethnicity: 52.9% White, 24.8% Asian, 12.7% Black

% level 4+ qualification: 31.2%

Outer south: 1,641,656

Bexley, Bromley, Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Richmond upon Thames, Sutton

Ethnicity: 73.9% White, 10.3% Asian, 9% Black

% level 4+ qualification: 35%

[johnnypd]

Thanks for those stats. Personally I'd like to see the ethnicity stats broken down - many of the whites are not "white british", blacks are split between Africans and Caribbeans, and Asian can be divided into a whole host of categories.

[Docere]

https://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination

Top 20 boroughs for Black and Asian subgroups here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_London

I didn't include Chinese under "Asian" when tallying up these numbers.

[10023]

Having just looked at the data for something else, can we do a comparison of New York and Paris?

What's interesting is that the inner ring of the Île-de-France region (Paris and the 3 adjacent departments) is almost the same size as the five boroughs of NYC:

Paris = 105 sq km
Hauts-de-Seine = 176 sq km
Seine-Saint-Denis = 236 sq km
Val-de-Marne = 245 sq km
Total = 762 sq km

Manhattan = 59 sq km
Brooklyn = 180 sq km
Queens = 280 sq km
Bronx = 110 sq km
Staten Island = 150 sq km
Total = 779 sq km

Population-wise, NYC is a bit bigger and denser:

Paris = 2.25m
Hauts-de-Seine = 1.58m
Seine-Saint-Denis = 1.53m
Val-de-Marne = 1.33m
Total = 6.70m

Manhattan = 1.63m
Brooklyn = 2.60m
Queens = 2.30m
Bronx = 1.42m
Staten Island = 0.47m
Total = 8.42m


Given the similar size it should work (although it's 4 divisions vs. 5), but I have a hard time saying Hauts-de-Seine is like Brooklyn. Seine-St-Denis is maybe the Bronx plus about half of Queens. Val-de-Marne is the other half of Queens and Staten Island?

[Docere]

When Greater New York was created in 1898, two-thirds of Queens County became Nassau County. If all of Queens County had joined, NYC would have a similar land area to London.