London’s second financial trading center catching up with the global economy─Canary Wharf

Text/Agnes Chen  Pictures/MotionElements、British History Online

Canary Wharf / Image source: MotionElements

Urban regeneration is not only about changing dilapidated buildings, but also about creating more livable places, including creating economic activities that can support the quality of the living environment.


Britain was the hegemonic power of the Age of Sail. In Dickens’s description, London during the Industrial Revolution was a political, commercial, and economic city that developed along the Thames River and was filled with coal ash, smog, and congestion. Because of these factors, the London Stock Exchange is one of the oldest exchanges in the world. After hundreds of years of changes, London finally returned to the top three financial centers in the world in this century, which is related to the renewal of Canary Wharf. Quite a close relationship.     

geographical location

     
Canary Wharf is located along the Thames River, east of central London, on the Isle of Dogs (Note: Like Shezi Island in Taipei, the Isle of Dogs is a peninsula surrounded by water on three sides).

In the early days, it was called Stepney Marsh, a low-lying marshland. In 1805, this area was the dock, unloading, and warehouse area of ​​the West India Dock Company.

Supplies from the Mediterranean and the Spanish Canary Islands pass through this horseshoe-shaped riverside cargo area farther east of the Thames estuary than London, providing many employment opportunities for navigation, maritime maintenance engineering and dock workers. The peak period exceeded one hundred thousand employed population.

In the early days, the area also led to the prosperity of related riverside dockside service industries. However, with the rise of modern container terminals, the traditional docks gradually declined, and the number of employees dropped to 3,000. The West India Dock Company also closed in 1980.

In 1981, the British government established the London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) to promote the renewal and development of Canary Wharf, and in 1982 the area was designated an “Urban Enterprise Zone”.

Isle of Dogs / Quoted from 
Survey of London: Volumes 43 and 44, Poplar, Blackwall and Isle of Dogs

A history of urban rebirth

In 1981, the then president of Credit Suisse First Boston (CFSB) securities company, in view of the huge amount of land in London, proposed to Prime Minister Mrs. Thatcher a second financial hub as a development proposal for the area. The first priority in the proposal is to connect the London Stock Exchange area with the Canary Wharf area. In order to restore London’s status as the world’s financial center, the redevelopment of Canary Wharf is based on national considerations. It not only wanted to rebuild the physical buildings of the past dock area, but also wanted to use the financial liberalization at that time as the focus of the entire London regeneration plan, seize the post-Cold War globalized trade trend, and provide a world-class London-based city. Urban regeneration opportunities in financial centers.

Many of Mrs. Thatcher’s more open policies in the 1980s led to the possibility of regeneration of the entire Canary Wharf. During her reign, she moved towards the privatization of state-owned enterprises, transparency of financial market fees, internationalization and electronicization of The Big Bang… including economic policies that did not hesitate to cancel the national school children’s milk fund budget and led the conservative party to the right. Although she fully supported the fund The development vision of Canary Wharf, but the policy does not involve the development of government funds. Although her right-wing style has brought mixed reviews, it has indeed made Britain an influential power in the process of world globalization.

Urban regeneration through securitization

The success of the Canary Wharf renewal and development plan was attributed to private funds driving the renewal of the entire area. Olympia York Company, formed by Canada’s two major real estate families, became the first wave of funds and developers to enter the market. At that time, it was Canada’s No. 1 The Plaza also became the tallest building in the UK. Later, due to the ups and downs of opportunities, funds were exchanged among many different countries. Finally, Canary Wharf Group, which was listed in the early 1990s, took over and spent more than 20 years investing and developing it. It transformed into the Canary Financial Center, which took off with the advent of the digital trading era after 2000, and subsequently became the hottest real estate area in London.

Many internationally renowned large companies, including State Street Corporation, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, HSBC, Bank of New York, First Bank of Boston, Securities Delivery Company, London Express, Reader’s Digest, Telegram, The Guardian and now fashionable energy companies, retail businesses, etc. all move in on long-term leases, while the Canary Wharf Group holds the land development rights in the dock area for a long time.

Canary Wharf gradually transformed into a financial center. Image source: MotionElements

Symbiosis and co-prosperity through the three transportation networks

It is worth mentioning that the original City of London once regarded the development of Canary Wharf as a threat. It also changed the regulations of the City of London in the early stages so that more floor space of office buildings could be released to compete with Canary Wharf, causing difficulties for early developers.

But later it turned out that the arrival of a large number of international financial companies brought more than just prosperity to the small area of ​​Canary Wharf. Even if the Docklands Light Railway was built at the beginning, it would not connect central London and Canary Wharf into a long enough road network in one step. When the local road network is opened up, a large number of foreign financial personnel stationed in the city can use the Internet on weekdays and interact with their counterparts in central London at any time within 20 minutes. Coupled with the construction of the London Airport in London and the gradual increase of transportation routes to Heathrow International Airport, the employment population in the Canary Wharf area has returned to more than 100,000, and it has driven the surrounding residential areas and become London The first choice for living.

The sustainability of urban regeneration requires an economy that can support its growth

Under Mrs. Thatcher’s Big Bang policy, the UK replaced the London Stock Exchange’s opaque fees and traditional open outcry trading model with the digital trading brought about by the new financial district of Canary Wharf. to the next century. In the later period, the consolidation of exchanges in various countries and online trading enabled the London Stock Exchange Group, headed by the London Stock Exchange, to catch up with the world trend and become the most important trading market in Europe due to the digital financial development brought by Canary Wharf.

Today’s Canary Wharf area has developed into London’s second sub-city, a modern commercial and residential area extended mainly by world financial transactions.

Where to go after BREXIT

Canary Wharf is facing one of the most challenging periods in its history, but is determined to turn the tide and become a “24/7 city where people live, work and play” said Shobi Kahn – Chief Executive, Canary Wharf Group.

In June 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. Image source: MotionElements

Even if the UK leaves the EU, according to the 2021 survey, more than half of the non-financial companies in the Canary Wharf area have been included. Although major banks have downsized after 2009, the UK is still the first choice for EU-related financial institutions to set up shop after Brexit. Even if 15% of the long-term leases of the banks that settled in the 1990s will expire within five years, the commercial district of Canary Wharf, which has become a popular city, will be replaced by the second wave of European insurance and retail banks.

A sustainable urban regeneration requires an economy that can support it to continue its journey. …[For more exciting articles, please read the 2023 Spring Issue of WalkingBlock ]

References

▷ Canary Wharf, London updated

▷ Canary Wharf, which is loved by both Li Ka-shing and Jack Ma, what is its charm?

▷ London City Airport

▷ Big Bang (financial markets)

▷ The changing face of Canary Wharf, London’s second financial hub

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