In the early 1970s, the London government completed an important task: they built some unspeakably ugly houses and moved in thousands of people who had been sleeping on the landings of high-rise buildings or crammed several at a time into cramped basement cubicles. All at once, every Londoner, regardless of age or gender, had somewhere to live.
Then, across England, major cities began municipal planning projects. Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham, Newcastle, and Glasgow all tore down the Victoria-era buildings in their city centers and built roads instead, hoping to ease traffic congestion. Yet while the buildings that represented civic pride were being demolished, the new roads did little to improve traffic. Thus, pedestrian walkways became the London planners' miracle cure for traffic.
Narrow alleys stood in sharp contrast to open squares, creating an interwoven effect through light and shadow. The ruling party at the time had intended to turn London into a network of motorways. Although it lost the 1973 election, and the new ruling party abandoned the motorway network plan, construction had already begun on extensions of the city's main roads.
During the same period, London also built two Underground lines, and Grunnings made quite a bit of money. However, it had not been Vernon running the company then, but his father. His father had died before he married Petunia, and Vernon Dursley took over the company his father left behind when he was only in his twenties.
He had not proposed to Petunia until his career was stable. Minerva had not said exactly where the Dursleys lived, but it was probably Little Whinging in southwest London. The houses there were all identical in style, looking neat and uniform, while making it difficult to tell which one belonged to the Dursleys among so many others.
This was probably the