Week 2: Markets
Welcome to our week two tour covering markets of London. We are beginning and ending this tour at two of the most historic goods markets in the city, and will move through the area of London that that is home to its financial markets. At the beginning of this tour, you will be broken into groups of five. Choose one group member to upload pictures and observations to the Google Doc linked on the weekly box on the course Moodle page.
The City of London is its own unique district within London that has long been a place where goods were traded. The boundaries of the city are roughly the same as the boundaries of historic Roman Londinium, and the site has been a centre of trade for centuries as a major port and road nexus and the centre of Roman Britain until the 5th century. The city is also home to some of the largest historic markets in the world, including Smithfields meat market where you are standing Spitalfields Wholesale Food Market where this tour will end.
Yet the neighborhood has changed dramatically alongside the changing nature of the UK economy. As manufacturing declined in the UK, with commodities being made in offshore factories and with the rise of automation, finance came to dominate the British economy. By 1990, 1 in 6 London workers was in financial or business services. Instead of trading goods, workers traded equities, bonds, insurance, and, crucially debt. Click on this link to get a sense of the density of finance in the neighbourhood.