Historic population trends

Another day, another statistical release, this time providing some longitudinal data over two centuries on London's population.

This first chart shows how London's population has grown and developed since 1801, growing from just shy of 1 million to 8 million. What is of particular interest though, is how this growth has not been in central London, but in the 'rest of inner london' during the 19th Century, with the greatest population growth (or shift) in the 20th century being in outer London




Indeed, at the beginning of the period, about 85% of 'Londoners' (though those not living in central London might not have considered themselves as such) lived in inner London, with 40 % of the population living in Central London, yet today less than 10 per cent of the population live in central London, with a broadly similar number of residents as in 1801.



If we look at the borough level, we can see that LBTH (light orange), Westminster (light green) and Southwark (light purple) had the largest populations in 1801 and continued to grow until the 1870s (Westminster) or the 1900s (LBTH, Southwark). Particularly striking was the flatlining in population in The City,  until the 1850s and then a period of continual shrinking of population, which has remained consistently low since the 1950s.


What I find quite interesting is the clustering of populations of individual boroughs in the post-war period, perhaps as a result of post war building projects, or perhaps simply expansion and spreading of populations as population densities decreased with improved living conditions.

In Tower Hamlets, populations peaked in 1901 and declined until 1981. I had assumed depopulation in Tower Hamlets was due to the closure of the docks post-war, when in fact, the majority of the depopulation occurred in the first half of the 20th century. By 2011, the population in LBTH had recovered somewhat, but was only as great as in 1951.
Indexing the data, so that for all boroughs 1801=100, we can see the significant divergence in population change. Brent (green-blue) has seen massive population growth, whilst for a number of boroughs, growth has come in the post war period.

  


Plotting the same data using a logarithmic vertical axis we can see some of the variation in population growth slightly better, with The City showing its population decline over the period.


When it comes to looking at the rate of growth in number of dwellings built since 1961, the average growth has been about 40%, except in The City (Dark Blue), wher there has been a quadrupling of dwelllings, suggesting that at least for a handful of people, that living in The City has been desirable, whilst all other boroughs have increased their housing stock at a broadly similar rate. [The chart below shows the number of properties, indexed to 1961]



 

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