This is London: life and death in the world city
Ben Judah

London may be the capital of the UK, but it is no longer an English city. More than half of its inhabitants were born abroad, and most of those have arrived in the last decade. Immigration has transformed every borough, from posh Knightsbridge and Kensington, where Russian oligarchs and Arab billionaires have bought out old English money, to suburbs as varied as Peckham and Neasden, home to a kaleidoscopic array of ethnic groups. London, observes Ben Judah, is well on its way to resembling Paris: a wealthy centre surrounded by a vast and volatile  banlieue of immigrant communities, the two worlds meeting as foreign-born cleaners, builders and servants work for the minimum wage, or less, in office complexes, speculative developments and upmarket residences.