London was still the largest city in the world at the beginning of the century, but was surpassed by New York by 1920. London continued to grow, however, between the world wars, and peaked at more than 8 million people in 1951. During the interwar years there was an increased expansion to the suburbs, made possible by the extension of the underground and the automobile. The London County Council built council housing in both the inner city and in the suburbs, which relieved the housing shortage, and developers emphasized semidetached suburban homes. (A semidetached house is one that shares a common wall with another residence.)
German bombings during World War II, especially the Blitz between September 1940 and May 1941, devastated vast areas of London, particularly in the City and the East End. As many as 30,000 Londoners died, and another 50,000 were injured. More than 130,000 houses were destroyed. After the war, contractors tore down older buildings and put up acres of concrete-and-glass towers in places like the Barbican and around Saint Paul's. The concrete, bunkerlike South Bank Centre was an attempt to rejuvenate the desolate area south of the river with a new cultural complex. London also experienced an influx of immigrants from the West Indies during the 1950s, and racial and class tensions flared in the late 1950s in the Notting Hill area, where many immigrants from the Caribbean had settled.
Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2001
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