Positioning London

A world city
London's life and economy will continue to be strongly shaped by transnational forces, particularly economic globalisation, improved international communications and migration. Many forces that have a worldwide impact will be especially significant for London. These include, for example, global warming and international threats to security.

A European leader
This plan reflects the aspirations of the European Union and member states that Europe should become the world's most competitive, most dynamic knowledge economy by 2010. As a world gateway London has a key role to play in delivering this ambition.

A capital city
The future of London has enormous importance for the UK as a whole. It has unique capacity to attract economic activities, including the higher levels of global business, which it is simply not possible to attract elsewhere in the UK. This is also true of significant elements of London's roles in government, tourism, culture and learning. London acts as a gateway to the rest of the UK for business and visitors. For example, it accounts for 75 per cent of all international arrivals to the UK. London is one of the few regions to make a significant net contribution to the national exchequer, conservatively estimated at £1-7 billion per annum.

The centre of a metropolitan region: inter-regional collaborative
working London is part of a metropolitan region of 21 million people. This forms a 'mega-city region' in which there are a vast number of linkages and networks between all the urban settlements. Within this wider region, London performs the functions characteristic of the central city. It is the main generator and source of jobs as well as of culture, leisure and higher-level shopping activities. The interactions within the mega-city region are increasing. The Mayor supports polycentric development across the mega-city region in which Central London, London's town centres and the towns in the other two regions develop in a complementary manner. He also supports the government's proposed growth areas in Milton Keynes, Thames Gateway, London-Stansted-Cambridge-Peterborough and Ashford as important contributions to dealing with the pressures on land and development in the mega-city region and sees these as complementary to the growth strategy for London set out in this plan

View Positioning London policies

• 1.1 London in its global, European and UK context
• 1.2 London and the wider metropolitan region
• 1.3 Growth Areas and Co-ordination Corridors