This paper investigates John Stow’s Survey of London in terms of its narrative structure and the emergence of a new idea of the self in Renaissance England. The Survey has been understood as a work of historiography that disapproves the city’s expansion caused by the agglomeration of a motley crew of migrants. Medieval London was considered a part of a coherent, logical system through the concept of the body politic, which posits a tight link between the state, the church, and the people. In the second half of the sixteenth century, this image of unity became increasingly irrelevant as the square-mile city controlled by ancient institutions of guilds, aldermen, and the Lord Mayor began to be transformed into a gigantic metropolis. The sheer density of new urban layers led to the development of printed media such as panoramas and maps, which helped conceptualize the entire city. The publication of the Survey must be viewed in this context of new urban development, but it also must be noted that Stow’s horizontal perspective clearly differs from that of contemporary historiographies. The authenticity of the Survey is based on Stow’s private experience, which textualizes the changing structure of London by means of memorization and comparison. Located within the outer frame of city chronology, his ward-by-ward perambulation provides a street-level perspective that highlights abrupt changes in the way of urban life. This structure not only effectively underlines the problems besetting urban and suburban developments but also conveys a sense of identity for Stow. His authority as a narrator allows him to fashion a new self, not as a merchant-tailor but as a scholar-author. As a result, the Survey functions as both private narrative and communal history. Stow’s narratorial voice binds different parts into the “hi-story” of London, constructing a new identity at the level of personal life and representing a community at the level of the city. The presence of the first-person narrator and his perambulation in the Survey relate the work with metropolitan literature in its inchoate form, punctuating the fact that the representation of the city is always linked to the demarcation of the subject position.