Adolf Hitler might be London's top real estate developer.
Or more accurately, he might be the single man most responsible for actually building things in London.
The reason is bombs.
During World War II, London was subject to intense bombing. The worst period was the 8-month stretch between September 7th, 1940 and May 11th, 1941. Most of you will know this by its popular name: the Blitz.
Hitler's explicit goal with the Blitz was to erase the city of London. This strategy for breaking his enemies' resolve was first tested out in Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War. At the behest of Francisco Franco, Hitler launched Operation Rügen: a campaign to crush the spirit of a place by bombing away its vital war industries and inflicting numerous civilian casualties. For the Spanish, this would pave the way for taking back northern Spain; for the Nazis, this would be seen as a major success for a new type of terror-based military doctrine. If you didn't know this is where the Blitz was born, you may have at least heard of the Picasso painting Guernica:
Since this strategy for breaking the resolve of his enemies did work in Guernica, and it reliably worked in Warsaw and Rotterdam too, Hitler expected things to go swimmingly against London.
But despite dropping 18,291 tons of high explosives and innumerable tons of incendiaries over the city, Britain would not give in. London lost 576,947 homes and 19,622 residents out of a population of 4,013,400, and the English did not falter.
In 2015, the Guardian reported on what became of the places in London that had experienced Nazi bombing. Journalist Peter Watts made this astute point:
"Once you start looking around, it’s astonishing how often the bomb site of 1940 is the building site of 2015. Developers and planners are still working round decisions made when London was rebuilt following the aerial bombardment that began on 7 September 1940."
You only have to look around to see that this is true, just look at eastern City of London or the Docklands. The reason is simple: out of the rubble came a need. People had lost their homes and they needed new ones, so affected areas were upzoned. Their height regulations were lifted and more homes were allowed to be built in those areas where the Nazis were able to do the most damage.
Economists Gerard Dericks and Hans Koster explicitly examined this topic in a 2021 paper entitled "The Billion Pound Drop".
Because we know where the bombs landed, where the houses were and are, and what the laws of the land say about those places, they were able to estimate a structural model to determine the effects of the Blitz on London's urban spatial environment.
The first scenario to think about is what London would be like if there had never been a Blitz at all. Here's how some of London's statistics would be distributed if that were the case:
In this scenario, the weight of London's economy is shifted from where it really is. Without the Blitz, London's city center would be 25% smaller in some areas. Because spaces in London would be more scarce, floor space prices would be much higher; in some cases, 20% higher today!
Wages would be lower, commutes would be longer, and agglomeration economies would not have been able to develop quite as well as they did. To really understand how large an impact this had, compare agglomeration economies and density today:
The Blitz has been so important for London's zoning that, had it never occurred, London's present-day GDP would be around 10% smaller.
Now, consider the situation where every area of London had received as much bombing as Pimlico, and adjusted policy accordingly:
In this scenario, Southbank and the surrounding areas would have fewer workers and residents today, but Westminster and its periphery would have more. Floor space would cost an average of 16% less due to greater supply, wages would go up by an average of 2%, and London would be an all-around more decentralized city.
It was cheeky to say that Hitler is London's top real estate developer, but there is a point here: the destruction brought to the city by the Blitz caused Britons to react by choosing to recover. Not only did they recover, they chose to become better.
Britons transformed the suffering from the Blitz into a shinier city that more people could live in comfortably, a place that would enrich the world more than it ever could have had they kept it small. If the Londoners of today want to learn anything from this, it can be summarized in one word: build.
Sources:
theguardian.com/cities/2015/se…
academic.oup.com/joeg/article/2…
Or more accurately, he might be the single man most responsible for actually building things in London.
The reason is bombs.
During World War II, London was subject to intense bombing. The worst period was the 8-month stretch between September 7th, 1940 and May 11th, 1941. Most of you will know this by its popular name: the Blitz.
Hitler's explicit goal with the Blitz was to erase the city of London. This strategy for breaking his enemies' resolve was first tested out in Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War. At the behest of Francisco Franco, Hitler launched Operation Rügen: a campaign to crush the spirit of a place by bombing away its vital war industries and inflicting numerous civilian casualties. For the Spanish, this would pave the way for taking back northern Spain; for the Nazis, this would be seen as a major success for a new type of terror-based military doctrine. If you didn't know this is where the Blitz was born, you may have at least heard of the Picasso painting Guernica:
Since this strategy for breaking the resolve of his enemies did work in Guernica, and it reliably worked in Warsaw and Rotterdam too, Hitler expected things to go swimmingly against London.
But despite dropping 18,291 tons of high explosives and innumerable tons of incendiaries over the city, Britain would not give in. London lost 576,947 homes and 19,622 residents out of a population of 4,013,400, and the English did not falter.
In 2015, the Guardian reported on what became of the places in London that had experienced Nazi bombing. Journalist Peter Watts made this astute point:
"Once you start looking around, it’s astonishing how often the bomb site of 1940 is the building site of 2015. Developers and planners are still working round decisions made when London was rebuilt following the aerial bombardment that began on 7 September 1940."
You only have to look around to see that this is true, just look at eastern City of London or the Docklands. The reason is simple: out of the rubble came a need. People had lost their homes and they needed new ones, so affected areas were upzoned. Their height regulations were lifted and more homes were allowed to be built in those areas where the Nazis were able to do the most damage.
Economists Gerard Dericks and Hans Koster explicitly examined this topic in a 2021 paper entitled "The Billion Pound Drop".
Because we know where the bombs landed, where the houses were and are, and what the laws of the land say about those places, they were able to estimate a structural model to determine the effects of the Blitz on London's urban spatial environment.
The first scenario to think about is what London would be like if there had never been a Blitz at all. Here's how some of London's statistics would be distributed if that were the case:
In this scenario, the weight of London's economy is shifted from where it really is. Without the Blitz, London's city center would be 25% smaller in some areas. Because spaces in London would be more scarce, floor space prices would be much higher; in some cases, 20% higher today!
Wages would be lower, commutes would be longer, and agglomeration economies would not have been able to develop quite as well as they did. To really understand how large an impact this had, compare agglomeration economies and density today:
The Blitz has been so important for London's zoning that, had it never occurred, London's present-day GDP would be around 10% smaller.
Now, consider the situation where every area of London had received as much bombing as Pimlico, and adjusted policy accordingly:
In this scenario, Southbank and the surrounding areas would have fewer workers and residents today, but Westminster and its periphery would have more. Floor space would cost an average of 16% less due to greater supply, wages would go up by an average of 2%, and London would be an all-around more decentralized city.
It was cheeky to say that Hitler is London's top real estate developer, but there is a point here: the destruction brought to the city by the Blitz caused Britons to react by choosing to recover. Not only did they recover, they chose to become better.
Britons transformed the suffering from the Blitz into a shinier city that more people could live in comfortably, a place that would enrich the world more than it ever could have had they kept it small. If the Londoners of today want to learn anything from this, it can be summarized in one word: build.
Sources:
theguardian.com/cities/2015/se…
academic.oup.com/joeg/article/2…
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