Least Populous London?

Deleted member 195769

I made a previous thread attempting to discuss it but I made the question too broad in an attempt to attract more conversation.
In 1939 London reached a peak of 8.6 million; in the 1980s, it went as low as 6.8 million. Today, it is on the precipice of 9 million.
With a POD of 1945, try to create the least populous London possible.
The best way to do this is probably by making other cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow have larger populations.
This could also be achieved by reducing the population of Britain as a whole and sabotaging the country economically to encourage emigration.
 

Aichi72

The Cold War goes hot, and London gets a ton of nukes.

EDIT: Less apocalyptically, a super agrarian/anti-urbanisation party comes to power somehow, and gives various economic incentives to move to/stay in rural areas and legislates a bunch of penalties for living in the city.
 
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politicalnomad

The Luftwaffe does much better during the Battle of Britain, coming to within a whisker of actually winning the Battle of Britain. Due to better management at high levels, the Luftwaffe continues to be able to hammer London up until late 1943. The net effect is that 50 percent more buildings are destroyed than in OTL. With huge sections of London left in shambles, the Atlee government introduces a residency permit system and encourages settlement in much less bombed out areas and cities, even moving several government departments out of London to ease the strain on the war ravaged city. It takes the better part of 25 to 30 years for large swathes of the London city landscape to fully rebuild.
 

Bored Young Man

Banned
politicalnomad said:
The Luftwaffe does much better during the Battle of Britain, coming to within a whisker of actually winning the Battle of Britain. Due to better management at high levels, the Luftwaffe continues to be able to hammer London up until late 1943. The net effect is that 50 percent more buildings are destroyed than in OTL. With huge sections of London left in shambles, the Atlee government introduces a residency permit system and encourages settlement in much less bombed out areas and cities, even moving several government departments out of London to ease the strain on the war ravaged city. It takes the better part of 25 to 30 years for large swathes of the London city landscape to fully rebuild.
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Management how? This is built strategy, the Luftwaffe had light and medium bombers designed for tactical support-it simply doesn't have the doctrine, aircraft type, nor sheer numbers of the USAF in 1944-1945 that can raze entire cities. If the Luftwaffe did build for strategic bombing, then there's a good chance it'll never fully occupy France and it's a moot point.

As for reducing London's population, the sheer prevalence of rivers and coast makes England lean towards a large metropole, but it could be something further down the Thames or England could end up like Ireland with a bunch of bickering tribes.
 
Gabingston

Gabingston

Britain has a more restrictive immigration policy, especially from 1997 onwards. With less immigrants, many of whom move to London, the capital (and country on whole) has fewer people.
 

CaptainCalvert

politicalnomad said:
The Luftwaffe does much better during the Battle of Britain, coming to within a whisker of actually winning the Battle of Britain. Due to better management at high levels, the Luftwaffe continues to be able to hammer London up until late 1943. The net effect is that 50 percent more buildings are destroyed than in OTL. With huge sections of London left in shambles, the Atlee government introduces a residency permit system and encourages settlement in much less bombed out areas and cities, even moving several government departments out of London to ease the strain on the war ravaged city. It takes the better part of 25 to 30 years for large swathes of the London city landscape to fully rebuild.
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There were still undeveloped bombsites in London in the late 1970s, more than 30 years after the OTL war's end.
More damage would prolong reconstruction even further, but the fact that London is a major rail hub and port would still justify reconstruction and that means it would repopulate eventually.
 

Deleted member 195769

Analytical Engine said:
Can we cheat by just having London being defined as just being Inner London, and Outer London being...not?
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No
The Cold War goes hot, and London gets a ton of nukes.
Click to expand...
I would prefer that we avoid nukes
The Luftwaffe does much better during the Battle of Britain, coming to within a whisker of actually winning the Battle of Britain.
Click to expand...
1945 POD
Britain has a more restrictive immigration policy, especially from 1997 onwards. With less immigrants, many of whom move to London, the capital (and country on whole) has fewer people.
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That’s probably too late to make a significant difference. You would still need to prevent the decline of other British cities and probably prevent Britain from joining the single market.
 

focus9912

Fully build out the London Ringways scheme, with the displaced people especially in the areas affected by south side of Ringways 2 being displaced outside of London, perhaps into the Home Counties. Meanwhile the debt of building it being handle by the boroughs and the GLC, which is substantial enough that there isn't any money to build (or even maintain) council housing.
Analytical Engine said:
Can we cheat by just having London being defined as just being Inner London, and Outer London being...not?
Click to expand...
That gives me another idea, perhaps a more messy implementation of the 1963 Act that led to a paralyzed local goverment and in turn, less construction of housing.

Honestly, it is a bit hard to make a reduced population without touching the realms of ASB.
 

Tibi088

I have no idea what the situation in this regards in London is but as we have already ruled out the easy solution (nukes) what about making housing in London prohibitivly expensive for a long time - like decades? Add in government programs that aim to improve the situation by building affordable housing - but outside of London. Maybe add in a surviving northern concentrated industrial sector - where the government housing project would also concentrate.

Edit: also AFAIK immigrants in Brittain are most heavily present in London. So have the british adopt strongly anti immigrant policies - maybe banning it - would hurt London more than the rest of the country.
 
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CaptainCalvert

Tibi088 said:
I have no idea what the situation in this regards in London is but as we have already ruled out the easy solution (nukes) what about making housing in London prohibitivly expensive for a long time - like decades? Add in government programs that aim to improve the situation by building affordable housing - but outside of London. Maybe add in a surviving northern concentrated industrial sector - where the government housing project would also concentrate.

Edit: also AFAIK immigrants in Brittain are most heavily present in London. So have the british adopt strongly anti immigrant policies - maybe banning it - would hurt London more than the rest of the country.
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Outrageously expensive housing is OTL from late 80s. Mid 80s it was merely expensive, but a colleague of mine managed to buy an OK flat in the mid 80s on an unexceptional single salary, and another freelancer friend bought a modest flat a year or two after. But the early 90s, prices had gone mad and kept rising.
The rehousing is also OTL with the various New Towns taking in people from the East End although the scale could perhaps have been expanded.
 
Gabingston

Gabingston

Daemon Blackfyre said:
That’s probably too late to make a significant difference. You would still need to prevent the decline of other British cities and probably prevent Britain from joining the single market.
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I didn't read the OP correctly. I thought it merely meant "less populous London", not "least populous London possible from 1945 onwards". The answer in that case is obviously nuclear war.
 

M79

Prototype nuclear power reactor/early large-scale reactor fails gloriously leading to much of the area near the Thames being abandoned and the capital moved to Birmingham. Twenty years later radiation levels are still high and London is seen as a city with potential in another few decades but more like a British equivalent to Philadelphia - former capital, lots of history, still a large city in its own right but eclipsed by another half-dozen cities and never to regain the top space.
 

politicalnomad

Okay, I'll have another go at this. With Labour victorious in the 1945 general election, and Britain bankrupt from the costs of fighting the WW2, the Atlee government introduces a permit requirement for residency in London (as well as other heavily bombed cities like Hull). The intent is to encourage resettlement in areas where the infrastructure is more intact and save on immediate rebuilding costs. Additionally, a not insignificant portion of London government jobs are moved elsewhere in the country to further ease the strain of rebuilding. As a result, London repopulates more slowly than in OTL. Labour manages to eke out a bare majority at the 1951 general election, keeping the residency permit system and the aversion to going full bore on rebuilding London in place until 1955. The end result of these policies are that London's population is only 85% of where it would be in OTL in 1955.

Between 1955 and 1980, that gap shrinks to around 9%. In 1980, Dennis Healey scrapes by in the Labour leadership election by four votes, and against the odds manages to mostly hold the party together, just barely. There are a trickle of defections to the Liberals and a new left wing party. The Conservatives are bleeding even more badly to the Liberals. That trickle from the blue ranks becomes a flood after Thatcher sends the fleet to retake the Falklands. It is a disaster. Invincible, Intrepid, and 6 other frigates and destroyers are lost. The fleet limps home in shame. The prospect of victory holds Labour together as the Conservatives implode. Labour nearly wins an outright majority, but falls just short at 317 seats. Healey does a coalition deal with the Liberals. Without Thatcherite economic policy fueling the rise of the London banking sector as much, growth is more muted than in OTL, and Labour's policies towards the industrial North are far from the wholesale butchery that happened under Thatcher. 'Managed decline and renewal' become the buzzwords under Healey, with a focus on keeping the bottom from completely falling out in industrial communities. A more moderate Conservative Party returns to power in 1991, and London's financial sector does indeed really start to take off around 1993-1994, but it's still playing catch up from where we are in OTL. Between 1991 and today, the gap shrinks to just over 7 percent compared to OTL.
 

Navigator

politicalnomad said:
....the wholesale butchery that happened under Thatcher.
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Wow, did I miss the period when Margaret Thatcher allowed the sub-continent to expand cheap cotton production in the early to mid 1960s; her ham-fisted approach to defence procurement and the cancellation of P1154, TSR2 and CVA-01; the time when she was closing the pits from 1964 to 1973 or the years doing nothing to halt the decline of British industry from 1970 to 1979?

You're right about the wholesale butchery but I think you might be mistaken who the butchers were.
 

M79

Point of order -

The OP did not mention which London is in question.

So does London KY count?
 

Father Maryland

Best way for London to be a city with a population but a small one would be for the cold war to go hot in the early 1950s when the Soviets had nukes but few of them and limited long range capabilities. London gets hit with a couple of early nuclear bombs with a yield of say 50 Kilotons each. The US doesn't really gets hit at all and is able to provide aid. By present day London is a city a great deal smaller then OTL but a city nonetheless.
 

sciscisciortino

Not sure you can really stop either but if you put speed barriers on the Big Bang of 1986 and integration with the world economy you can slow the growth.
 
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