Implementing transit oriented development in Greater London

The development around rail infrastructure is not a new concept, but only in the last decades, transit-oriented development’s (TOD) popularity has increased in various planning strategies and visions around the world. As a counterbalancing force to urban sprawl processes driven by private car dominance, the principles of transit oriented development are being perceived as particularly useful in a vast range of geographical and policy-making contexts. The underlying idea, supported by international literature, is that foreign models cannot just be applied in a different context. Starting from this assumption, this chapter analyses TOD challenges hampering TOD application in practice in the London context, looking at governance, content and tools aspects. The chapter reports the main finding of the research, which combined insights from international experiences with ‘action-oriented’ research involving London local stakeholders. In particular, data was collected from some extensive expert interviews in which stakeholders were asked to assess the applicability in London of policy measures that have worked elsewhere, and reflect on the motivation and implication of their assessment.