The Passenger: London

Fully-illustrated, The Passenger collects the best new writing, photography, art and reportage from around the world.

London is a survivor. Its financial heart had already been hit hard by the 2008 crisis, then the cosmopolitan city par excellence, whose dynamism is based on a constant influx of immigrants (and tourists), suffered the double shock of Brexit and the pandemic. Nightlife, they say, is dying, the faces on the tube are tired and silent, of those who just want to go home. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse are inequality, gentrification, hyper-surveillance, and a skyrocketing cost of living. By turning into a playground for the super-rich, the city is pushing farther into the suburbs the people who truly live there and, in a chain reaction, excludes those who can no longer afford it. The question on everyone's lips is: who is London really for?

Yet, in the lesser-known corners of the metropolis, there is a buzz. London has always attracted artists and eccentrics and as the home of punk it celebrates the spirit of DIY, independent creativity and small budgets, communes and collectives. Its strength lies in its diversity and, while trying to shake off the heavy legacy of empire, the very children of that empire – including the Mayor of London and the nation's Prime Minister – along with all the newcomers, first-generation immigrants who make up 37 percent of the population, are shaping it into a renewed global cosmopolis, always lively and dynamic, always at the social and political forefront, always looking to the future, on the verge of becoming something different.

Arts and culture, finance and infrastructure, football and music, activism and diversity. London is the capital of Europe in all these fields—and many others. As this volume of The Passenger shows, the open secret to its success is its openness to the world.