While I mentioned the awe and excitement I feel whenever I visit Canary Wharf in my entry yesterday, the truth of course is the jaw-dropping redevelopment there hasn’t been confined to the Isle of Dogs. The reason that area strikes me as so incredible is that, just forty years ago, all that was there is a bunch of decaying docks, but these days it feels like New York, Dubai or any other modern metropolis. The contrast could barely be more striking, and the amount of money which must have been ploughed into the area over the last half century is surely incomprehensible. The thing is, of course, that investment and regeneration wasn’t just confined to the Isle of Dogs but took place all over East London and the Docklands. I just need to head out of my flat to find examples of it: the Arsenal at Woolwich; the Royal Docks; Stratford with it’s olympic park, stadium and huge shopping centre. All chock-a-block with expensive, modern buildings; and all now linked together with a state of the art public transport system. I just came across this video from 1976 in which the redevelopment of the Docklands is being debated, and it’s a fair bet that East London today would be unrecognisable to them. They speak as if it is somewhere set apart from the rest of the city, neglected and forgotten; but thanks to infrastructure like the Jubilee and Elisabeth Lines, London feels more united and navigable than ever before.

The thing is, what I find concerning is whether this could have happened anywhere else. As incredible as such a transformation is, the fact remains it required a huge effort spanning several governments to transform a postwar wasteland into a thriving economic and cultural epicentre. As fortunate as I now feel to live in this fascinating area of domes, stadiums, skyscrapers and huge convention centres, I can’t help worrying whether areas outside of the capital are getting similar levels of investment. Was it just because the Docklands were part of London that they received such a transformation? There must be areas outside of the capital in need of such renewal, but which still aren’t receiving it. Large cities such as Manchester are doing rather well, but what about other, smaller places. Thus, as amazing as I find the story of the docklands, I can’t help worrying that it exposes an imbalance between the capital and the rest of the country.