London's Social Evolution, 1898-2006

"In many ways, London has changed dramatically in the past century. It has sprawled far beyond its 1898 boundaries. The network of underground transport has expanded, and cars have appeared. The city has been bombed in two world wars. The middle classes fled, then returned. Yet when color-coded socio-economic maps from 1898 are updated using data from the last census, the changes are less striking than what has stayed the same. Not only do the broad patterns found in the 19th century hold—the East End is still poor, the West End still rich—but so do many local ones."