My name is Jordana Jampel, I am a senior and my major is English. Upon reading Bruce Robinson’s article, “London: A Modern Babylon,” I learned some facts I previously did not know about London, especially the way in which the city matured and sectioned out. I was especially interested in Robinson’s breakdown of the north, south, east, and west ends of London because I visited the city last summer and remember the different Tube stations and streets on which I traveled. During the 1700’s, the south bank of the Thames River was not as accessible as the rest of London which really surprised me because I would think that the region right along a city’s main waterway would be the most accessible location. As I read on though, I learned how during this time the development of roads was booming and people were relying on other means of transportation over water-travel. Once I learned that piece of information, I understood a bit more why people would try to avoid the slum by the water–because in order to get across the water, bridges need to be funded and built, which was eventually done.

Due to my experience on the Tube, I was really fascinated by the influence railways had on the development of London boundary-wise as well as population-wise. During the mid to late 1800’s, railways began to run all throughout London so workers may travel with more efficiency and even ease. Robinson mentions how, “Railways meant they could move to the suburbs,” which to me, explains how London reached the heavily-populated point She did during the beginning of the twentieth century (3). With Robinson’s observation in mind, I immediately considered how the Tube lines were defining factors of what was considered within the boundaries of London. London was able to expand Her city boundaries, therefore including more people within a given space part of the population. As more people moved into London and increased the population number greatly, London continued to expand, via the railway, and eventually engulf surrounding areas, which only included more people within the city limits of London. About the expansion of railways, and therefore London, Robinson writes, “But London was spreading as well as rising. By the 1860s it had swallowed Hammersmith, Wood Green, and Blackheath…The Cheap Trains Acts of 1883 helped the working class move from grim tenement blocks to ‘railway suburbs’ like West Ham and Walthamstow” (3). With the logistics of how and where London spread to in mind, I am interested in continue to explore how much London’s growing boundaries affected the overall population growth within the city–if the expansion was really significant to that population number or not.