Why has Manchester changed so much?

[n_mcfc]

Serious question.

Why has the city developed and been regenerated so much since its decline as oppose to, let's say, Hull, Middlesbrough etc? Was the bomb really so crucial?

Doing some research on the subject at the moment and was wondering what you all thought?

 

[the-air-was-blue]

Manchester will be the new London soon, with all it's pomp and vulgarity.
Domes and giant wheels will soon start to scar the Manchester skyline and the locals will become either hip/chic or chavs.

 

[jimmy blue shoes]

Because a great big bomb blew it to fuck.

No choice really.

 

[MCFCTrick]

Because a great big bomb blew it to fuck.

No choice really.

Lol, this ^^^^^^

Thanks to the Bog Trotters, we got a brand spanking new city centre....slainte!

 

[urmston]

By Manchester I assume you mean the city centre. I don't think the centre has changed to a greater extent compared to large provincial cities like Leeds, Birmingham and Liverpool. All these places have seen similar changes with no bomb, and mainly the same type of change - more chain store shops, lots of shoe-box flats and more expensive and allegedly trendy and sophisticated bars to take disposable income from gullible youngsters.

The bomb has become a bit of a cliche trotted out by southern media types who know nothing of Manchester. For a city of its size Manchester has quite a small, compact city centre but the bomb only damaged a very small fraction of that. The way some people talk about the bomb now you'd think it had been a small atomic one which levelled everything around it for a mile or so.

 

[gaudinho's stolen car]

It boomed because of all the business that was attracted to the city. During the late 90's early 00's all the big banks and insurance companies set up headquarters in Manchester, presumably because of competitive rent and a wealth of talented prospective employees.

As we know, once a handful of high profile companies throw their hands in, the rest follow, and part of the tenancy agreements will have been improved facilities in the city. HSBC/BoNY etc wouldn't set up their most crucial operations there unless massive development was on the cards.

Hats off to whoever was in charge, it's just a great shame Salford has pandered to the Media City side of things, rather than developing Chapel Street like it should have.

Of course Manchester is a victim of its own success, look at the huge, empty, state of the art buildings off Fountain Street, or opposite the MEN Arena.

 

[ono]

It's too multicultural.

 

[es1]

Because a great big bomb blew it to fuck.

No choice really.

Lol, this ^^^^^^

Thanks to the Bog Trotters, we got a brand spanking new city centre....slainte!

as bad as it sounds the bomb was the best thing to happen to manchester, it sparked a lot of inner city redevelopment and has led to the modern, bright and visitor friendly city centre we have today

 

[gaudinho's stolen car]

It's too multicultural.

Crikey! That's a diplomatic way of saying that you wish they would shut the borders. If that is what you are saying?

 

[Anonymous]

Serious question.

Why has the city developed and been regenerated so much since its decline as oppose to, let's say, Hull, Middlesbrough etc? Was the bomb really so crucial?

Doing some research on the subject at the moment and was wondering what you all thought?

It has nothing to do with the ira bomb (though that did spur regeneration in a small quater of the city centre). Blowing a bomb up is actually generally adverse to commercial expansion (think Iraq for instance - it's been bombed back 3 centuries and all the oils now going to the usa).

It's all a bit obvious really but the fact is that Manchester historically had a robust infrastructure (good road structure, water supplies, sewage and base industry virtue of the wealth of victorian investment).
Victorian Manchester flourished due to it's position (on the East / West highway between the ports of Hull and Liverpool and on the South / North highway between Southern England and Scotland) and ready supply of both coal & water. That's pretty much what's happened in recent decades - we still sit at the mid-point of many trade routes by road, rail and now air and we benefit from direct trade and the cross-pollination of emerging ideas and methods. That's what's given Manchester the staying power to out perform the rest of the north under changing circumstances.
Eg. Liverpool was a rich city when Englands main trade was West to the colonies but it slipped into bin dipping decline when the slave trade etc ended.
It's actually picked up in recent years due to benefit of the trade between Europe and Ireland - and Manchester's benefited from that also.
In short; we do well because of where we are and what we have.
Simples eh?