Fundamentally suburbs are caused by a demand for housing and this in turn may
be due to an increase in population, changes in household structure or
migrations of population.
In south London two of these factors are particularly prominent: migrations of
population and changes in household structure.
It is generally held that London’s population grew inexorably from the late
middle ages. It certainly became larger, spectacularly so, from about half a
million in 1700; one million in 1800; in 1900, to over 6 million today.
But during almost all this period the growth was not due to a surplus of births
over deaths, but due to immigration.
Indeed such was the state of public health in working areas of London in the
17th and 18th centuries that without immigration the population would have
declined very rapidly.
Demand
Household structures
The structure of households has also changed significantly over time. They
have become greater in number, but smaller in size and now fewer generations
live together or near each other.
Better health care has been a key factor in the reduction of household size.
As infant mortality has fallen, so parents have not been tempted to produce
large families.
Easy access to contraception in the 20th century has also been an obvious
factor.
Household size has also fallen as a result of the state’s intervention to
prevent overcrowding.
Demand
Work and home
Suburbs are also a product of two important economic and social factors; the
aspiration of those that can to separate their work environment from their
domestic one, and as a stage for displaying one’s position in the social pecking
order.
In the 17th and 18th centuries most people’s work and home were physically
close and often in the same premises.
“Walworth is one place and this office is another… They must not be
confounded together.”
— Dickens, Great Expectations
Entrepreneurs
Speculative development
Involvement in the process of building suburbs has been a very risky thing
indeed.
The key players in the process are the freeholder, the builder, the financier,
sometimes a development company and, of course, the consumer.
The typical process was for a freeholder to decide that housing would offer
more profits over the longer term than agriculture.
Infrastructure
Transport
Railways
London’s first passenger railway was the London and Greenwich, which opened
in 1836.
Later lines to Blackheath, Bromley, Dartford, Sidcup and Orpington played a
critical role in shaping suburban growth.