After two decades of evolution and transformation, London had become one of the most open and cosmopolitan cities in the world. The success of the 2012 Olympics set a high water-mark in the visible success of the city, while its influence and soft power increased in the global systems of trade, capital, culture, knowledge, and communications.

The Making of a World City: London 1991 - 2021 sets out in clear detail both the catalysts that have enabled London to succeed and also the qualities and underlying values that are at play: London's openness and self-confidence, its inventiveness, influence, and its entrepreneurial zeal. London’s organic, unplanned, incremental character, without a ruling design code or guiding master plan, proves to be more flexible than any planned city can be.

Cities are high on national and regional agendas as we all try to understand the impact of global urbanisation and the re-urbanisation of the developed world. If we can explain London's successes and her remaining challenges, we can unlock a better understanding of how cities succeed.

“The Making of a World City: London 1991 to 2021, by leading global cities expert and Centre for London Associate Greg Clark, which is published this month, seeks to remedy this by considering how London got where it is today, and setting out the challenges still facing us.”  (Centre for London, 10 December 2014)

Greg Clark is a Londoner and expert on world cities. He works as an advisor to OECD, World Bank, Brookings Institution, ULI and more than 20 major cities around the world (including Auckland, Barcelona, Brisbane, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Moscow, New York, Oslo, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto) but learned what he knows from working in London as a leader in city agencies during the period covered by this book. He has written four books for the OECD and several published reports for the Brookings Institution, British Council and ULI.