No single person or committee ever planned the re-emergence of Southbankside. As real city districts should, it has simply evolved for all kinds of reasons. The greater South Bank area has benefited mightily in recent years from the attentions of the South Bank Employers' Group, an unusually successful amalgam of public and private organizations that has had a direct effect on the streetscape and buildings, particularly near the river. Neighbouring Bankside in turn has had the galvanizing effect of Tate Modern to turn it round and bring developers' money flooding into the area. The Borough of Southwark has taken the opportunity to upgrade some of its previously down-at-heel streets. As for the theatres, art galleries, restaurants and so forth, nobody planned a cultural quarter, either: it just happened, because premises and land were cheap. The area is even on the Underground map now, thanks to the Jubilee Line: Southwark Station is the point of entry. Finally, the whole of Southbankside is now much more accessible thanks to two new pedestrian bridges across the Thames: Norman Foster's Millennium Bridge at Tate Modern, and Alex Lifschutz's Jubilee Bridge at Waterloo. As a consequence, the centre of gravity of London has shifted slightly but significantly, to admit this swathe of the capital south of the river.

If there is a lesson in any of this, it's not to try too hard. They spent 15 high-profile, big-money years redesigning the Paternoster Square district north of St. Paul's Cathedral, and it's still chillingly artificial. Several grandiose revamp plans for the South Bank Centre have come and gone over the same period. Meantime, Old London has gone about its organic business, responding to changing needs, reinventing itself. And so we find ourselves in 2004 with Southbankside, a complete recycled district with a cultural heart, the Young Vic writ large. It's a victory for real, organic urbanism over sterile masterplanning.

http://www.southbanklondon.com - excellent guide to this burgeoning area.