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Reborn Sheffield among Europe's 'dazzling' seven
Sheffield has been hailed as one of seven major European cities that are completing a "dazzling comeback" after being on "the brink of ruin just 20 years ago".
The accolade comes from the London School of Economics, whose Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion has just carried out a two-year study of the way the cities are rebuilding their environment, economy and society from a low point of industrial decay and unemployment.
The LSE said: "All seven adopted a similar blueprint to haul themselves back onto the world stage using tactics which included bidding for high-profile sporting and cultural events, cleaning and renovating squalid streets, restoring major landmarks, training citizens in new skills and mixing funding from public and private sources.
"The former industrial giants are now developing high-tech businesses, halting the population drain from inner-cities and, in some cases, have already seen employment outstrip the number of jobs lost in manufacturing."
The report's lead author, Anne Power, Professor of Social Policy said: "These former industrial cities have proved far more resilient than many people dared hope.
What do you think of Sheffield's regeneration? Has it been a success? Post your comments below.
"During the 1980s and 90s they lost up to 80 per cent of their manufacturing jobs and this led to polarised neighbourhoods, crumbling city centres and creaking public transport, schools and healthcare. Their very future was in question.
"Our report shows a pattern book of recovery that the cities used to fight back. They adopted multiple strategies which didn't only focus on their economy but also involved improving the urban environment and helping their disadvantaged populations back to work."
Setting the context for Sheffield's economic turnaround, researchers say the city had a history of union conflict over industrial closures, local political clashes with central government, and "catastrophic, politically- driven investment decisions to try and stem the tide of de-industrialisation from the late 1970s."
"These confrontations eventually threw up a totally new, partnership-based, private sector-oriented approach in the late 1990s which turned Sheffield into an avant-garde model of city reform," add the researchers.
Looking at the city's route out of economic despondency, they say: "Sheffield argued that economic recovery would not work without neighbourhood renewal and social cohesion.
"At the same time it prioritised public-private partnerships and put a strong emphasis on arm's length structures. Sheffield also invested heavily in city centre projects such as the Peace Gardens, Winter Gardens, a high-class tourist hotel and the restoration of the Civic Hall."
What the researchers found, see next page.
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London School of Economics researchers studied Belfast, Leipzig and Bremen, in Germany, Bilbao in Spain, Turin in Italy and St Etienne in France as well as Sheffield.
They found that Sheffield lost 86,000 manufacturing jobs during its economic crisis and the proportion of the workforce in manufacturing tumbled from 55 per cent to just over 10 per cent.
The proportion of manufacturing jobs lost in Sheffield was higher than in any of the other cities in the study, although Leipzig lost more jobs – about 87,000 – in about a third of the time – while the province of Turin lost 171,000 jobs in a similar time span to Sheffield.
Turning points for Sheffield, highlighted by researchers, included the arrival of a new political leadership and partnership-oriented chief executive for the city council, in 1997, a new focus on the creation of dedicated public-private agencies, the election of a New Labour government, offering many new funding streams to core cities, city centre regeneration, the introduction of a neighbourhoods strategy and a policy to close the gap between rich and poor areas of the city.
Main challenges facing Sheffield now, according to the LSE researchers, include reaching disadvantaged people, particularly those in more isolated communities, such as the Yemeni community.
Researchers also found that Sheffield and St Etienne were the only cities in the study which had not placed emphasis on tourism as part of their recovery strategy, although there was also some uncertainty about how strongly Bremen had focused on tourism.
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Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 24 May 2012
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