Original post by RICHARD FLORIDA via The Atlantic Cities
When the 2012 Olympics kick off at the end of this month, the bulk of the action will take place in East London. The area is virtually “unrecognizable from seven years ago when London celebrated its winning bid,” according to yesterday’s Boston Globe and is rapidly becoming “a new metropolitan center.” While the district’s $10 billion Olympic makeover has attracted all the attention, the bigger story for urbanists and city-builders is the ongoing bottom-up transformation of nearby neighborhoods into a bustling new center for high-tech industry.
A Tale of Tech City: The Future of Inner East London’s Digital Economy, a new report from the Centre for London, an independent think tank, documents the dramatic growth of East London’s tech cluster, known as “Tech City” or “Silicon Roundabout.” The study finds that the cluster now houses 3,200 firms and 48,000 jobs, far larger than previous estimates.
