4 ms·

Really? That is very different from my experience. If you're talking about the actual City of London then maybe, but most other places I have found quite livel

Really? That is very different from my experience. If you're talking about the actual City of London then maybe, but most other places I have found quite lively and active in the evenings, especially around where I live.

ouid 3y ago
the article says london, and they parent comment says "the centre".
- ghaff 3y ago
  The City of London (aka the financial district). I'm not sure if I'd consider that the "centre" of London or not. I guess it would depend on the context.
adhesive_wombat 3y ago
Take a random "residential" street from Google maps, Craven Street, near Charing Cross. Hardly a hive of human life: walk down there at night and I'd guess maybe 1 in 8 or 10 windows may have lights on. https://maps.app.goo.gl/bbT6JnPH8X2NN9ht9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/bbT6JnPH8X2NN9ht9 And yet if you search for it on the Internet Archive, look how many different people used to live there, and they're just the ones that got their address written down durably: https://archive.org/search?query=craven+Street&sin=TXT&sort=date https://archive.org/search?query=craven+Street&sin=TXT&sort=... There are 22,000 results!¹ From a quick scan, we have architects, doctors, people dying aged 74, births, remarriage of a widow of a naval captain, soap-boiler, a tailor, a church donors, lords, ladies, "misses" and esquires.
- paganel 3y ago
  The same applies to the city of Vienna proper compared to what it used to be a century ago. A lot more densely populated, a lot more life into it, nowadays, if you ignore the touristic downtown, the city might as well be a dormitory after 6 or 7 in the evening.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    Isn't that an extreme case? A little over a century ago it was the capital ~50 million people in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a city population of 2,239,000 in 1916 (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna ). The same chart has the population as 1,911,728 in 2020, about 10% smaller than a century ago. It's now the capital of a country with only about 9 million people.
    - paganel 3y ago
      You could make a similar case about London, too, it has lost a lot of its mojo compared to the 2000s. The Great Financial Crisis has put a knife through its financial heart, and Brexit certainly didn't help. This recent [1] Economist article about the LSE showcases some of that gloom. [1] https://archive.is/hDZsB https://archive.is/hDZsB
      - eesmith 3y ago
        London in special for different reasons, yes. My main point though was that Vienna's population decreased greatly after its empire, and while increasing is still 10% smaller than a century ago. London's population has different dynamics, and I can't pretend to have a good reason. I can observe that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_London shows a clear decline correlating with its shift away from being an imperial power, from ~8 million in 1951 to ~6.6M 1981.
- ghaff 3y ago
  I usually stay about a block from there. It's not deserted at night but it's also not really a residential neighborhood and there is a lot more action as you walk up towards Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, and all the West End theatres. To another comment, I'd expect the City of London (i.e. the financial district) to be pretty deserted at night as very few people actually live there.
  - adhesive_wombat 3y ago
    > also not really a residential neighborhood The thing is, for hundreds of years, it was indeed residential. Those were houses, built to live in.

ouid 3y ago

the article says london, and they parent comment says "the centre".

ghaff 3y ago
The City of London (aka the financial district). I'm not sure if I'd consider that the "centre" of London or not. I guess it would depend on the context.

adhesive_wombat 3y ago

Take a random "residential" street from Google maps, Craven Street, near Charing Cross. Hardly a hive of human life: walk down there at night and I'd guess maybe 1 in 8 or 10 windows may have lights on. https://maps.app.goo.gl/bbT6JnPH8X2NN9ht9 https://maps.app.goo.gl/bbT6JnPH8X2NN9ht9 And yet if you search for it on the Internet Archive, look how many different people used to live there, and they're just the ones that got their address written down durably: https://archive.org/search?query=craven+Street&sin=TXT&sort=date https://archive.org/search?query=craven+Street&sin=TXT&sort=... There are 22,000 results!¹ From a quick scan, we have architects, doctors, people dying aged 74, births, remarriage of a widow of a naval captain, soap-boiler, a tailor, a church donors, lords, ladies, "misses" and esquires.

paganel 3y ago
The same applies to the city of Vienna proper compared to what it used to be a century ago. A lot more densely populated, a lot more life into it, nowadays, if you ignore the touristic downtown, the city might as well be a dormitory after 6 or 7 in the evening.
- eesmith 3y ago
  Isn't that an extreme case? A little over a century ago it was the capital ~50 million people in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a city population of 2,239,000 in 1916 (according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna ). The same chart has the population as 1,911,728 in 2020, about 10% smaller than a century ago. It's now the capital of a country with only about 9 million people.
  - paganel 3y ago
    You could make a similar case about London, too, it has lost a lot of its mojo compared to the 2000s. The Great Financial Crisis has put a knife through its financial heart, and Brexit certainly didn't help. This recent [1] Economist article about the LSE showcases some of that gloom. [1] https://archive.is/hDZsB https://archive.is/hDZsB
    - eesmith 3y ago
      London in special for different reasons, yes. My main point though was that Vienna's population decreased greatly after its empire, and while increasing is still 10% smaller than a century ago. London's population has different dynamics, and I can't pretend to have a good reason. I can observe that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demography_of_London shows a clear decline correlating with its shift away from being an imperial power, from ~8 million in 1951 to ~6.6M 1981.
ghaff 3y ago
I usually stay about a block from there. It's not deserted at night but it's also not really a residential neighborhood and there is a lot more action as you walk up towards Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden, and all the West End theatres. To another comment, I'd expect the City of London (i.e. the financial district) to be pretty deserted at night as very few people actually live there.
- adhesive_wombat 3y ago
  > also not really a residential neighborhood The thing is, for hundreds of years, it was indeed residential. Those were houses, built to live in.