Really excellent portrait of a city (England's second city, still?) that is sorely lacking leadership and vision. Even the mayoralty's 'West Midlands' name suggests an absence of the city as a central idea.
Good analysis - but there are a lot more railway lines and stations than shown on the image.
A friend of mine once suggested that it was proximity to London that held Birmingham back. If there is a specialist skill set clustered in London then it stops firms setting up in that specialism in Birmingham.
I’d be interested to know your opinion on how the sheer size of Birmingham as Local authority impacts the stats that are then used negatively in analysis. Take the comment on graduate % here - looking at the data for RQF4+ skills data from the ONS, although Birmingham has 45.3% vs 56.8% for MCR, on raw numbers Birmingham has 334k vs Manchester’s 227k - that’s a huge difference. Especially if we are focusing on skills that support a thriving commercial core in the city centre.
On economic data, Manchester as a local authority is tighter and then takes in the productive area around the airport. In Birmingham, the boundary is extensive but crucially does not include the airport of m42 corridor.
I feel this context is often lost - it’s challenging and boring to explain after all. But it feels important.
I agree Birmingham needs to go on its own path. That amongst things listed, means NOT trying to just be Manchester Two (or London 3). (Greater) Manchester is pretty much England’s ‘Second City’ these days, it has clear local government, a City-Region that works similar to ‘London’, great P.R through it’s Football clubs, a thriving economy and has just been ‘gifted’ No. 10 North by the P.M (remember George Osborne and his ‘kidnapping’ of Chinese delegates to see Manchester too).
Birmingham needs to sort itself out and forget the ‘Second City’ tag as I believe it’s something we can’t win with the public, media and national government seemingly endorsing the Mancs. Besides Birmingham is THE ‘Big City-Proper’, as Sir ‘Dick’ Knowles once said “what people consider ‘London’ is just a collection of boroughs!”.
A superb analysis.
Really excellent portrait of a city (England's second city, still?) that is sorely lacking leadership and vision. Even the mayoralty's 'West Midlands' name suggests an absence of the city as a central idea.
Brilliant piece - I love this! It’s about time that Westminster stopped sleeping on Birmingham.
Good analysis - but there are a lot more railway lines and stations than shown on the image.
A friend of mine once suggested that it was proximity to London that held Birmingham back. If there is a specialist skill set clustered in London then it stops firms setting up in that specialism in Birmingham.
I’d be interested to know your opinion on how the sheer size of Birmingham as Local authority impacts the stats that are then used negatively in analysis. Take the comment on graduate % here - looking at the data for RQF4+ skills data from the ONS, although Birmingham has 45.3% vs 56.8% for MCR, on raw numbers Birmingham has 334k vs Manchester’s 227k - that’s a huge difference. Especially if we are focusing on skills that support a thriving commercial core in the city centre.
On economic data, Manchester as a local authority is tighter and then takes in the productive area around the airport. In Birmingham, the boundary is extensive but crucially does not include the airport of m42 corridor.
I feel this context is often lost - it’s challenging and boring to explain after all. But it feels important.
I agree Birmingham needs to go on its own path. That amongst things listed, means NOT trying to just be Manchester Two (or London 3). (Greater) Manchester is pretty much England’s ‘Second City’ these days, it has clear local government, a City-Region that works similar to ‘London’, great P.R through it’s Football clubs, a thriving economy and has just been ‘gifted’ No. 10 North by the P.M (remember George Osborne and his ‘kidnapping’ of Chinese delegates to see Manchester too).
Birmingham needs to sort itself out and forget the ‘Second City’ tag as I believe it’s something we can’t win with the public, media and national government seemingly endorsing the Mancs. Besides Birmingham is THE ‘Big City-Proper’, as Sir ‘Dick’ Knowles once said “what people consider ‘London’ is just a collection of boroughs!”.