‘Re-inventing’ the city: from industrial to post industrial city

1. ‘Re-inventing’ the city: from industrial to post industrial city Irene Hardill The Graduate School for Social and Policy Research The Nottingham Trent University E-mail: Irene.Hardill@ntu.ac.uk

2. Introduction: changing images of the city • Focus of lecture: link together economic, social and urban geography • Examine how the changing urban form is the result of economic and social forces • How economic and social change is producing new socio-economic landscapes in urban areas • Draw on pictorial, photographic, textual and cartographic material for one case study city, Nottingham • Nottingham ‘press’ image for 2004: binge drinking, drugs and gun crime – is it unique? Does this apply to all the city – or could there be another story? Will this image remain in 2005?

3. Nottingham, ‘Robin Hood’ Country

4. Nottingham: Long and Rich History, Predating Industrialisation Nottingham Castle

5. Nottingham: a brief history • Anglo-Danish settlement; Norman settlement, • Craft industry, market town and county town functions • Industrialisation – manufacturing – flat land near canal, railway, and in working class districts such as Radford, offices and warehouses in Lace Market, site of Anglo-Danish Nottingham • St Ann’s, ‘a slum…10,000 houses, crushed into a pace of 340 acres…40 houses per acre’ (Coates and Silburn, 1970, 67) ‘a large deteriorated district, geographically distinct, with a certain sense of identity…even a sense of community’ (ibid, 66-7).

6. Nineteenth Century: Nottingham one of the Cradles of the Industrial Revolution • Diverse industrial base; Nottingham (lace, engineering, pharmaceuticals); • Economic landscape: railway, canal, industrial buildings and adjacent working class housing • Canal • “look at the barges on the canal below. It’s just like Venice,” he said seeing the sunshine on the water that lay between high factory walls.” (Lawrence, 1937,104) • Housing and factories adjacent • “Once out of doors they were more aware of the factory rumbling ... Disinfectant-suds, grease, and newly-cut steel permeated the air over the suburb of four roomed houses built around the factory”(Sillitoe, 1993, 27)

7. Nottingham in the industrial era

8. Nottingham in the industrial era

9. Housing: the two Nottinghams

10. Nottingham: growth in industrial era

11. Nottingham’s growth the result of migration • ‘[an extraordinary] variety of residents, the Poles and Ukrainians from war time days, the Italians shortly after, more recently the Asians and West Indians … the Scots and Irish, the Geordies and Liverpudlians, all drawn to the Midlands in the pursuit of work. Some stay [in St Ann’s] for a few days or weeks…but they all live with, in and among the people born and bred in St Ann’s, a key part of Nottingham’s working class’ (Coates and Silburn, 1970, 95-6) • 2001 Census: 85% population White (England 90.9%); Asian or Asian British 6.5%; Black or Black British 4.3%. http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/AreaProfileFrames.asp?TID=13&AREA=Nottingham&AID=175819

12. Economic Decline, but Economic Transformation • Economic change: deindustrialisation, technological change and restructuring of divisions of labour • Nottingham – 1991-2001 30 per cent (15,700) manufacturing jobs lost, service sector (53,100) 30 per cent jobs created, growth of 13.8 per cent • Public policy to regeneration in 1980s and 1990s corporate capital investment in cities by use of public subsidies and minimal planning –Nottingham worked with private sector • By mid 1990s public involvement back on agenda, as with City Challenge, Single Regeneration Budget, new era of partnership • Since 1997 ‘joined up thinking’ engaging the community to overcome social fragmentation and economic inequalities, such as New Deal for Communities

13. Economic Transformation: Nottingham Key Factors • No longer Nottingham lace, bicycles etc, but Geography matters – location, location, location • Key service sector relocations in 1990s- Inland Revenue, • New developments - Capital One, various call centres – locational advantage of Nottingham cited • Indigenous growth – Experian, now Nottingham's largest private sector employer, (until 2004 Boots was largest private sector employer) • National project - National Ice Stadium • Vibrant city centre – retail remained strong but long standing importance of ‘evening’ economy enhanced – but ‘for it was Saturday night, the best and bingiest glad-time of the week’ (Sillitoe, 1993, 9) ‘they crossed Slab Square and, fresh from a pint in the Plumtree rolled to the Red Dragon and from there pushed into the Skittling Alley and the Coach Inn’ (ibid, 194).

14. New Economic Landscape: Rise of Service Sector • Retailing, leisure, culture, media, banking, insurance and finance, logistics • Range of service sector jobs - producer and consumer services • Gentrification – new build and refurbishment • Marketing of new landscapes: city presented as ‘urban chic’ • ‘unique opportunity to buy a piece of Nottingham's heritage’ (http://www.wbcityhomes.co.uk). In this way gentrifiers • ‘exclusive residential areas’ for ‘aspirational buyers’ (www.lacemarketproperties.co.uk) • Location is important; ‘everything is on your doorstep’ (www.wbcityhomes.co.uk) and enables you to ‘Relax [and] let life come to you’(www.onefletchergate.com). Inner city dwellers are ‘surrounded by everything you could possibly need – cinemas, clubs, bars, theatre, parks, gardens’ and ‘exclusive restaurants’ (http://www.one flethchergate.com).

15. The New Urban Frontier

16. New Economic Landscape

17. Social and spatial division • Nottingham areas of affluence – adjacent to the Park Estate; some former industrial/commercial areas, such as the Canal Corridor and the Lace Market • But areas of deprivation remain – St Ann’s, the Meadows, Hyson Green • The ‘other’ Nottingham – St Ann’s – considerable redevelopment 1960s and 1970s 10,000 Victorian slums removed and a new estate of 3,500 built; some older housing retained, so today mixture of older and modern housing. St Ann’s has a population of 8,000 in 3,800 homes – remains a pocket of deprivation • See for example Ruth Lupton’s 2003 book ‘Poverty Street: the dynamics of neighbourhood decline and renewal’ St Ann’s is termed Riverlands

18. Conclusion • In this lecture explored the economic, social, cultural and political processes shaping and reshaping urban areas through the use of a case study • Not all former industrial centres have restructured to emerge as a post-industrial city • Public and private sector involvement • Blurred working, living and leisure spaces, important nodes in 24/7 economy • Location of Nottingham, central England, nodal location, good road, rail and air communications – Nottingham-East Midlands airport • Emerged as key regional city for the East Midlands (home of development agency and the Government Office; Assembly in Melton Mowbray)

19. Bibliography • Hardill, I. (2002) ‘Discovering Cities: Nottingham’ Sheffield: Geographical Association. • Hardill. I, Graham, D.T. and Kofman, E. (2001) Human Geography of the UK: An introduction London: Routledge. • Lupton, R. (2003) ‘Poverty Street: the dynamics of neighbourhood decline and renewal’ Bristol: Policy Press