Detectives at Scotland Yard are to be taken out of specialist squads and put back into uniform under fundamental changes to the way the force operates in order to meet budget cuts of £500m.
About 800 detectives spread among 107 specialist teams, from drug squads, to burglary and car crime units, will be moved back into boroughs, where they will work in strengthened neighbourhood teams.
The Met police input will boost the number of constables by 1,200 and turn neighbourhood police officers into investigators.
The changes are part of a blueprint which will lead to the New Scotland Yard headquarters in Victoria, central London, being sold off, along with about 200 other police buildings.
The London mayor's office for policing and crime confirmed on Wednesday that 65 police stations would close to the public. The "interface" between the police and the public would take place, instead, in the community.
To replace front desks at police stations the Met is considering basing officers in supermarkets, cafes and the Post Office. These would be places where the public could talk to police about crimes, buy licences, and report lost property.
The aim of the changes is to give neighbourhood constables investigative powers for dealing with low-level crime. They will be led by a "sheriff" in each borough, and be supported by a teams of special constables, police community support officers and some detectives within each of the 32 boroughs of the force.
The assistant commissioner Simon Byrne described such detectives as "constables in T-shirts and jeans", saying that he wanted to end the division between uniformed officers and detectives.
He said: "The word detective is bandied about but the distinction does not really exist. We want to be better at investigating crime and we don't want to put labels on things.
"We want to make sure that uniformed officers are better trained to carry out investigations. Detectives have great skills, but these are labels of the past. It is about making sure that detectives skills are spread evenly across London.
"Every crime takes place in a street, a home, it's wedded in a business, it's wedded in a community. At the moment we've got over 107 different squads working in my bit of the Met. It's just inefficient.
"Most of the people that we arrest and deal with are spree offenders. By putting false barriers around how we investigate we miss a trick."
The Met's deputy commissioner, Craig Mackey, said, however, that dealing with reduced chances of promotion for the remaining officers would be challenging. "That's one of the most challenging things internally. In fairness that is part of the whole programme of change. There will be fewer opportunities for promotion in the short term but in 2015/2016 that will open up again," he said.
While carrying out what the commissioner in the past admitted were huge cuts to the budget, the mayor's office wants public confidence in the police to rise from 62% to around 75%, and to reduce by a fifth crime in seven key areas.
The reduction in number of police stations open to the public follows figures showing that the public were not going to station front desks to report crimes.
Figures showed that 80% of visits to front counters in police stations concerned only 71 counters of the 135 front desks, and that fewer than 50 crimes a night were being reported in person at police stations.
Among the stations closing are those in Croydon, the scene of some of the worst rioting in the August 2011 disorder. Tottenham station, where the protest over the shooting of Mark Duggan turned violent and sparked rioting across England, is to open only part time.
Other stations shutting are Hampstead, Albany Street (near Regent's Park, central London), Hackney, Shepherds Bush, Feltham, Chelsea, Clapham, Sydenham, Tooting and North Woolwich.
The plans are to go out to public consultation for eight weeks.
Stephen Greenhalgh, the mayor's deputy for policing, said the interface between the police and public would move to places like supermarkets and libraries.
The use of the Post Office as a base for police officers to meet the public was being pursued, he said.
He added: "The Post Office has benefited from a lot of capital money from government to keep branches open. We are in the process of developing a pilot scheme to see if it would work with the post office counter providing a fixed point on the high street where people could hand in lost property, carry out transactions like purchasing licences, and [take action over] crime reporting."
Scotland Yard is already cutting about 1,500 staff posts within the force.
