ABSTRACT
Like that of many other cities, Manchester’s industrial base has dwindled, especially with the two recessions of the early 1980s and 1990s, and as many companies have moved to cheap labor havens. Furthermore, a service or knowledge economy has arisen and has partly replaced the former industrial one. It is this, probably more than any other single factor, which has played a key role both in attracting skilled migrants to the microregion and in creating a growing demand for them (Sassen 2000; Lavenex 2006). Manchester also has had to come to terms with intensifying globalization processes and the need to carve out a niche for itself in the hierarchy of world cities.
