London needs to set a new, green vision for growth aimed at reaching net zero emissions. But, while the city will not ‘hollow out’ it needs to be mindful of the impacts working from home will have and should grasp the opportunity to create a more polycentric city region.

Those were some of the thoughts to emerge from an invited group of Next Gen young professionals, asked to project their vision for the next 15 years, ahead of next year’s mayoral elections.

In New London Leaders: Changing the Face of London LCA board director Jenna Goldberg said that the last 15 years of London’s development had shown an increasingly left-leaning city that proved that it could ‘think and deliver big’, reflected in NLA’s Changing Face of London exhibition and major projects like the Olympics. But there was anxiety about the future and much of London’s growth in the last 15 years had been buoyed by a real sense of globalism that has been rocked by Covid. ‘In March, globalisation took a punch in the gut and our worlds all became a lot smaller’, she said.  ‘We need something new and a new vision and ambition to set our sights on for the next 15 years to get us through a post-Covid, post-Brexit and post-Grenfell world’. But despite claims about 15-minute cities, Goldberg felt that the best culture, life and leisure only happen when you have the weight of people and density, which is what London represents. ‘I just don’t buy that London is going to hollow out’, she said. ‘I’m not saying it won’t take time; it will. But I think we will be back’.

NLA's 2035 checklist of 15 aspirations for a better, fairer and more sustainable London.