How Manchester Fixed Its Industrial Decline

many of our planet's most successful cities have grown and developed as industrial hubs then continually reinvented themselves to survive but not all cities have kept pace and some former industrial centers have struggled in recent years [Music] manchester impressively bucks this trend emerging as a stronghold during the industrial revolution the city has now reinvented itself into a major creative center attracting skills talent and investment from around the world [Music] poised to cement its status by evolving an entire district into a new technology and creative hub while arguably repositioning itself as the uk's second city the success

of manchester stands as a powerful example for countless other urban centres looking to reverse their declines this is how a former industrial powerhouse became one of europe's top creative capitals recent decades have been challenging for many of our former industrial heartlands in a time of rampant technological progress mass ability of talent and rising global competition these once prosperous centers of trade have been forced to adapt and many have struggled to do so manchester was one of several uk cities to find itself in this position recognized as the world's first truly industrialized urban area it developed

at the heart of the global cotton trade in the 19th century moving from specializing in manufacturing and production to exporting finished goods manchester was at the heart of the industrial revolution if we tried to explore why that was manchester happened to be a blade of trade and commerce and production of textiles before the industrial revolution really took hold it's situated on navigable rivers rivers were important at that point in time not just as a source of connectivity allowing people to move their goods to market also as a source of power when the industrial revolution came

along manchester already had some critical mass during the 19th century about a third of the world's cotton production was here in manchester or in the towns immediately surrounding it however the peak of what became known as codonopolis was soon followed by a sharp decline as demand for british cotton plummeted with the outbreak of the first world war the uk cotton industry collapsed in the mid 20th century as production ramped up in countries closer to where the raw material was grown overall employment declined by 22 percent between 1951 and 1981. jobs in engineering and electrical goods

almost halved but textile industry jobs fell by a startling 86 percent by the 1980s and 90s this was a place in urgent need of change and a new direction [Music] now manchester has risen once again the rebuilding of a large part of the city centre in the wake of an ira bombing in 1996 catalyzed development and the region has prospered since refocusing onto the technology and creative sectors in the early 2000s the rebirth of manchester really started in the mid to late 1990s and that reflected the fact that the roles of cities had changed over

time i think the city council sort of changed from a view of protecting the old industries which were in decline to being a lot more forward-thinking and progressive in in trying to attract new business and new technologies to come in and they've been very successful at doing that and people call it the manchester miracle of of changing you know a city which was really in decline to something which is really booming and and is progressive today in the industrial era coal might have been your most important resource today it's talent and manchester has a lot

of that thanks to its four universities and the fact that there are a hundred thousand students in the city it has great connectivity it has great scale outside uh you know outside central london it really does have a a lot going for it manchester is now the fastest growing tech hub in europe and one of the most rapidly expanding cities on the continent around a hundred thousand more residents are expected to relocate to the city centre by 2025 while another 65 000 jobs are expected by 2036 transport links are also being improved a one billion

pound overhaul of the airport is underway and manchester piccadilly will play a key role in the hs2 high-speed rail project and the proposed northern powerhouse rail scheme the 3.5 billion pounds recently invested into the city's media and digital industries is higher than anywhere else on the continent but this is just the start of the city's creative reformation an entire new district is now being reimagined as a global creative cluster here manchester's burgeoning tech and media movement can gather share ideas and develop as a like-minded community enterprise city is a new quarter for manchester and it's

really based around media tech and creative industries it's a place where people are going to work they're going to live and there is going to be a cultural element to enterprise city as well we'll include a new venue called the factory the new home for the manchester international festival a venue for 7 000 visitors so that together with great place making that will be within the public realm will provide a new cultural base for manchester based in the heart of the st john's neighborhood and rising on a site with a long history of media production

enterprise city is the business element of the new development the scheme is being conceived and led by allied london with long-term funding and ownership of the first commercial buildings provided by aviva investors the evolution of this district will see state-of-the-art new structures rise alongside rehabilitated heritage buildings including the former granada studios an iconic tv set that was once home to the world's longest running serial tv drama coronation street the 60 million pound old granada studios project will include nine floors of bespoke workplaces a 200 room hotel retail units a 370 square meter rooftop extension and

a series of readapted tv and film studios enterprise city has already confirmed technologygiantbooking.com as a key tenant of manchester goods yard with media conglomerates wpp set to occupy the adjacent globe and simpson building consisting of four interlinked blocks connected by a series of bridges to encourage connectivity between companies the goods yard is a new york inspired warehouse concept that will set a new standard in flexible workspace another key component is the abc buildings featuring a contemporary take on 1960's brutalist architecture and embodying the revolutionary design ethos of that time this complex provides over 9 000

square meters of workspace for media and tech businesses alongside a boutique cinema and retail units first constructed in the 19th century the bonded warehouse was once a busy terminus that connected manchester with nearby liverpool today the structure is being carefully reborn as an enterprise hub for small to medium-sized businesses offering six levels of work studio retail and event space [Music] enterprise city can play a role in the next stage of manchester's economic development it will help the city foster those clusters in the creative media and tech sectors and the larger those clusters get the more

productive they will be and the more employment they will create and those employment benefits will penetrate outside of the city to the wider northwest helping to reinforce manchester's position as the capital of the north [Applause] i think it will help the region on a variety of bases in terms of city employment city wealth etc creating a district that that can really house those people and be really tailored towards that industry will only encourage more occupiers to either start either to come to manchester or or new startups to choose manchester as their base it's a big

scale project and if you if you work in real estate being involved in a project such as this is what gets you out of bed in the morning so i'm incredibly proud of where we've got to today now that we have created this infrastructure to bring people together in a productive way what kind of innovations are going to take place there what kind of new ideas are going to be born in this area i'm very excited to see what plays out in that respect the pain of de-industrialization is still being acutely felt in cities around

the world destroying livelihoods and shattering communities while having a profound impact on global politics and economic policy decisions but with developments like enterprise city manchester is bucking the trend emerging as a powerful case study for other centres and proving the importance of adaptability what was once a leading industrial powerhouse has now been reinvented into a dominant creative hub a city whose prominence on the world stage has endured and that arguably carries more weight today than at any time before this video was made possible by aviva investors learn more at the link below and as always

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