ABSTRACT
Manchester was the world’s first city of the industrial revolution and it is today
preoccupied with civic attempts to reposition itself both internationally and post-
industrially. It lies at the heart of a metropolitan area of 2.6 million people, with a
central core surrounded by a number of significant towns which coalesced to
form a conurbation at the peak of its worldwide importance, when ‘King Cotton’
dominated (Parkinson-Bailey 2000; Kidd 1993).The present chapter sets out to
briefly explain its pre-eminence as an industrial and commercial centre, track its
civic ambition over the past century, and to document its accelerating loss of
confidence with economic decline and restructuring. It then proceeds to look at
the fight-back since the 1980s, focusing in particular on the city’s governance and
evolving policy framework, and attempts to explain the growth of its entrepre-
neurial credentials in the 1990s. Finally, it focuses on the contemporary frame-
work and current challenges facing both the city and its city centre.
