London’s regeneration scene – Chicago Tribune

While London is located on the ancient Roman foundation (Londinium), today's city was powerfully formed by the industrial revolution of England. In 1800, there were about a million people in London. By 1900, its population is four times four times, since people came from rural areas to a large city for a promise of good work and a better life. “Best times and worst times”, it was London Charles Dickens and his The tale of two cities.

Today, London has become a leader in the “regeneration”-reproductive use of buildings and spaces of this period to turn to a modern lifestyle, including the rich and rusty industrial heritage of the city, which he builds in the future. Seeing these sites is to see some of the best examples of today's London.

London Docklands is a great example of regeneration. In the 19th century, Doklands was the most loaded navigable port in the world. Abandoned with the advent of container shipmarts, it has become an industrial wasteland – but today it is a busy zone of skyscrapers, where workers enjoy good public transport and many green places for relaxation.

Just up the Thames River, this trend continues at the Battersei power plant. At the beginning of the 20th century, this brick beast made one fifth needs of the city in the energy sector, burning coal-breaking light blacks and helping London earn his nickname “Big smoke”. The site was disabled in 1983 and remained abandoned for decades. Today, four iconic stacks are still high, but no more smoke. Instead, the site was smartly turned into a smooth shopping center up the market, with modern apartments and a landscape, similar to a park extending to the Thames. His piers, which once received coal supplies, now receive attractions.

Speaking of boats: the regent channel is another main regeneration site. Built around 1820, it helped to miss the first waves of the industrial revolution of England. In the early 1800s, all about coal, potatoes and ceramics, and the channel was part of an extensive network that helped to make a business bum, connecting the industrial heart of England (for example, Birmingham) in the north, and the world's largest port (doklands). The channels remained the key to industrialization until the appearance of steam trains exhausted them in their importance.

Today, while trains are still flourishing, industrial channels are outdated. Their barges and towing ways are not used to transport coal or grain, but for relaxation. The Regent channel is lined with idyllic green green colors, filled with picnics and runners – and its waterways are filled with former freight boats, which are now floating houses that are ideal for an unconventional lifestyle or are held lazy vacation.

And everything around, post -industrial transformation is in high gear, since attractive apartments and residential towers are accompanied by echo that until recently there was this rusty wasteland. The regent channel is on the coal of the yard and the area where the canal boats, then loaded with coal, to help in the strength of both the train and the industrial era. Until recently, it was an area dotted with broken glass, drug addicts and prostitutes. But the pimp of the 1960s does not recognize this place today, which is a clean, prosperous commercial center and a shopping complex, built on the basis of its presence of the industrial age.

The adjacent railway station of St. Pankras is a reminder that transport infrastructure has always been the basis of prosperity. Thanks to an expensive project, which is now recognized as an excellent investment, it was transformed from soot to smooth. The main terminal “Eurostar”, with a bullet train, under the tunnel of the English channel (“Chunnel”), connects Londoners and Parisians a little more than two hours. And with its dramatic canopy of iron and glass, the station stands like a palace memorizing an industrial era.