Sponsored by Davis Langdon and Everest. As Manchester and Liverpool vie to become world cities, Erikka Askeland asks if new buildings are enough
Cities of the futureThe future of cities is big cities. In the North West, Manchester and Liverpool have been pulling out all the stops to regenerate and put themselves on a par with those cities that somehow expand beyond national borders to capture the world's imagination: cities in Europe such as Barcelona, Madrid, Copenhagen, Munich and Berlin that have a mythology and an integrity all of their own.
Academics studying the urban environ-ment call them world cities. While London, New York, Tokyo and Paris are the premier league, other world cities are not necessarily capitals but are defined as being strategically important in the global economy. Most importantly, world cities are home to a concentration of interna-tional financial investment and are the preferred locations for accountants, advertising agencies and banks.
Local cheerleaders, in the wake of a hugely successful XVII Commonwealth Games and the excitement of the Capital of Culture 2008 bid, might be thinking that this is the North West's big chance to play on the world stage. But mere exuberance does not a world city make. A Roster of World Cities report written in 1999 provides a sobering inventory of cities ordered by their "world city-ness".
Alpha world cities include London, New York, Hong Kong and Los Angeles, while beta world cities include San Francisco, Sydney, Toronto and Zurich. Manchester gets a mention close to the bottom, listed amongst Bratislava, Cleveland and Rotterdam as showing "some evidence" of becoming a world city. Liverpool doesn't even figure.
However, even in the last three years Manchester and, to a certain extent, Liverpool have been transformed, a transformation which each city hopes is enough to draw inward investment and increase global clout. The blighted, rain soaked, post- industrial landscape so notoriously captured by an Australian film crew in an effort to show up Manchester's flaws to Olympic Games officials has been slowly but surely replaced by high class retailing, bars, restaurants and loft-style flats. Public investment in infrastructure in Liverpool has led to a sprawling series of privately funded office and retail developments which will showcase its prize collection of listed buildings.
For some, the race to redevelop wasted areas with shiny new buildings and refur-bishments is a sure sign of progress. For others, it's a sign of the increasing polari-sation between the haves and the have-nots. World cities are characterised by the gulf between powerful high-fliers and pockets of abject poverty - witness the contrast in London between the City and the borough of Tower Hamlets just to the east. Both Liverpool and Manchester follow closely on Tower Hamlets for the dubious distinction of having the second and third most deprived wards, but without the counterbalancing high- level influence on world markets.
Dr Justin O'Connor, who is head of Manchester Metropolitan University's Centre for Popular Culture and also the brains behind Urbis, the museum of the modern city, sees Manchester in particular as becoming more globalised by making inroads into the wider European economy. While globalisation is a key trend in the development of world cities, it comes at a social cost, and one that the UK doesn't address as well as its European neighbours.
"As a consequence of increasing globali-sation, there is an increasing amount of polarisation in cities, and more so in the UK and Ireland than Europe," says O'Connor. He argues that the UK's free market approach means that the govern-ment addresses the consequences of social exclusion and rather systematically tack-ling the root causes. He points to Helsinki as a city which has successfully overcome the gap through a social welfare economy playground, and Salford Quays, which funded a ground breaking gallery but left a trail of discount shopping outlets and American-style theme restaurants.
This proliferation of multiplex cinemas, at Salford Quays and the Great Northern particularly, was the reason why PY Gerbeau was forced to abandon a truly original leisure development, the £356.5m Xscape indoor ski dome, and moved instead to Yorkshire. A significant part of the development included a cinema, which would have pushed over the edge an already glutted market, Salford City Council confirms.
Ancoats Urban Village, part of the New East Manchester scheme, covers 50 acres east of the city's Northern Quarter. The run-down, historic industrial area is home to 14 listed buildings, so care has been taken in selecting the sort of mixed developments that will be friendly to businesses and residents the developers are hoping to attract, as well as the local character. "The big push is mixed use - although several buildings are wholly commercial," says Lyn Fenton, development director for the Ancoats Urban Village Company. "We are looking at small to medium sized businesses and ground floor uses that provide interest and animation. And the only way a Pizza Hut or a Burger King or any of those things will be around here is if they agree not to do their usual thing. The supplementary planning guidance for
which balances hi-tech businesses with investment in public infrastructure, health and social services, whereas England's North West tends to build stuff. "The North West in general - fairly understandably - has focused its efforts on rebuilding the city centre," says O'Connor. "Even during the Commonwealth Games, the idea of regen-eration was really building- centred. Talking about the Millennium Quarter, Howard Bernstein [chief executive, Manchester City Council] talks about it linking with the socially deprived areas just north of Manchester.
Well yes, it improves the environment, it does something, but it is really strange to think that a building is going to do that in some way. The provi-sion of public play areas or sports facilities in Manchester is really, really bad. I don't want to knock the Commonwealth Games but it is has reduced investment in other sporting and social infrastructure." People who walked, or more likely, took a bus to the City of Manchester stadium during the Commonwealth Games may have understood his point.
The games brought an invasion of well- heeled, city centre professionals into the once dark heart of East Manchester. In many cases, it was the first time they had ventured so far beyond the affluent city centre's bars and lofts. With the magnificent stadium glowing in the dusk and the imposing new £340m Asda/ Walmart in the further distance, it is hard not to be impressed by the newness and spectacle. But a short walk along the spruced- up Ashton Canal Corridor for the opening ceremonies leaves visitors with the firm impression that none of it benefited the locals who lined the street gawping at the £3200 a ticket crowds, waiting to watch the fireworks from outside Sportcity's gates.
New East Manchester, one of four urban regeneration companies formed in the wake of Richard Rogers' Urban Renaissance task force, has big plans for the area which extends beyond sports facilities and are designed to bring jobs and better homes for the residents of east Manchester. The plans envisage that in 10 years time the population of the area will have doubled. More than £3200m in public funding has been earmarked to go into the area, in expectation that it will attract £32bn in private funding. Projects range from the 160 hectare North Manchester Business Park, which recently received confirmation that Fujitsu would go ahead with ICL's plans to develop a new £330m headquarters there, to massive new housing projects in Beswick and Ancoats, as well as Ancoats Urban Village. When the ambitious plans for East Manchester were announced last year, Sir Alan Cockshaw, chairman of New East Manchester, acknowledged that the scale of the task for East Manchester was "formidable".
Thankfully, planners in general have been moving away from the trend of obvious methods of regeneration - where a developer throws up some huge, cheap boxes to house a multiplex cinema, ten pin bowling, some fast food outlets and a gym or a shopping mall. Deals attracting criticism in Manchester include the Parrs Wood UCG cinema complex, which built a new school in exchange for the school the area is completely anti-single storey development and anti- large areas of car parking. This is an urban area and it needs to be developed along those lines with density that is definitely urban and with an environment that is an extension of the city and not a suburb." Developers in the area include a number that are sensitive to the requirements of urban regeneration, such as Artisan H, Urban Splash and Ician.
There is almost 1m sq ft of commercial development and 1,110 residential units either in planning applications or advanced stages of development. "We know that we are not going to attract the big corporates, and quite frankly that doesn't worry us very much," says Fenton. The conflict between big- box shopping mall and the preservation of local char-acter still rages in Liverpool. Liverpool City Council and regeneration agency Liverpool Vision are backing a £3700m retail scheme proposed by London-based developers Grosvenor Estates and Henderson Investments at a six acre site on the waterfront.
The site, known as the Paradise Street Development Area, is contested by developers the Walton Group, which has proposed a shopping mall/ theme restaurant/ cineplex develop-ment at adjoining Chavasse Park. In 1996, the Walton Group, led by self-styled people's champion Bill Davies, took up a £315m option on the site. However, the tide of planning and public opinion, egged on by Liverpool City Council has since shifted towards a different kind of development. Recently, planning inspector Richard Mordey threw his support behind the Grosvenor plan following the end of a public enquiry in February.
"The Paradise Street Development Area represents a unique opportunity to bring vacant sites and buildings back into use, to improve and re- use buildings of historic interest, providing attractive linkages to the main retail area, the Ropewalks, Chavasse Park and onto the waterfront thereby enhancing the vitality and viability of an extensive area of the city centre. This approach is infinitely preferable to a self- contained, mall- based design either in the Paradise Street/ Blue Coat Triangle or at Chavasse Park."
Although the Walton scheme has been sent for review by the secretary of state, Grosvenor is becoming increasingly confident that local planning authorities will give the plan the go- ahead in September. "We and the people of Liverpool are tired of confrontation," says Grosvenor's Rodney Holmes. "The story is that Grosvenor Henderson is ready to invest £3700m into Liverpool city centre, creating 4,000 jobs and re- establishing Liverpool as the premier shopping destination west of Manchester. This is serious investment - not grants or aid - but serious, hard, private- sector investment in Liverpool."
BEFORE AND AFTER The Box Works, an Urban Splash development in Manchester
AFTER AND BEFORE Urban Splash's transformation of the Match Works, Speke
FUTURE FACTS
80 per cent of the population in the EU lives in built-up urban space
Over 9m people currently work in UK offices, and this number is expected to increase by around 8 per cent over the next decade
Currently, there is around 8m sq ft of office space in Liverpool city centre compared with Manchester's 17m sq ft
The cherry on the massive public and private investment cake going into Liverpool's regeneration is the Fourth Grace, a signature building to go along-side the Liver, Cunard and Port of Liverpool Buildings on the city's water-front. With the positive effects on tourism and regeneration of a Bilbao Guggenheim in mind, a call for proposals has led to a shortlist of four projects, each a mixed-use development including office space, retail/ leisure as well as gallery space for a proposed museum of Liverpool life, to be curated by National Galleries and Museums of Merseyside (NMGM).
The shortlist includes proposals from the practices of high profile architects Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Will Alsop and Edward Cullinan. Partners behind the scheme, including Liverpool Vision, the Northwest Development Agency, NMGM and the council are looking to the Fourth Grace to boost tourism and Liverpool's profile on the world stage. "The Fourth Grace promises to elevate Liverpool's skyline into the world super league," says David Fleming, NMGM director.
"With tourism already the world's biggest industry and employer, the importance of this scheme - including a new Museum of Liverpool - cannot be overestimated." Such acclaim is a lot to expect from a building. Other issues also require atten-tion, meaning that world city status for Liverpool or Manchester will still be long in coming.
One such issue is the need for a greater degree of devolved government, an idea which has yet to find its time, as business leaders seem to reject the bodies such as the North West Regional Assembly, while the general public's enthusiasm is wholly unproven. "When consultant groups compare Manchester with its competitor cities like Barcelona or Toulouse, it compares fairly well," says Dr O'Connor. "But the one thing it systematically, massively underscores on is its capacity for self government - and it shows."
There was a healthy turnout of business people at the Insider business breakfast, Cities of the Future: How We Will Live and Work, held at the Bridgwater Hall, Manchester, on August 1. Speaker for the morning was Charlie McKeith, architect with Ian Simpson Architects in Manchester, the firm responsible for two of Manchester's most striking landmarks, Urbis and No 1 Deansgate. McKeith started by looking back, "I like to look at the past, to see gradual development that shows cities as complex organisms adjusting but with dramatic changes," he said.
He reflected on how Manchester in partic-ular was evolving and how the city has the opportunity to learn from New York and London, which are "on the threshold of being just bearable to live and work in". Manchester city centre had a population of just 1,000 in 1997, and has attracted 10,000 city dwellers today. That number is forecast to double by 2005. Starting from the same figure in 1773, high density city living soared through the 1800s, eventually peaking at 350,000 at the turn of the century. McKeith's observations on what the city produces - on the development of the urban
economy - were particularly poignant. "When 350,000 people lived in the city, Manchester was the factory of the world. Doubtless, I will be corrected, on this, but now there is no export production in the city centre. "What production there is is related to local use, mainly domestic, lifestyle or leisure. Services and goods are sold, but not necessarily produced.
"Work is as subject to lifestyle trends and fashion as much as living. People will however still need to interact and talk and home working may have the revolutionary effect some people predict," he said. So while the development of the railway in the 1830s had a major effect, and outbreaks of cholera shifted housing concerns later in that century, what are them or drivers now ? Mc Keith believes climate change provides a huge challenge. "We can absorb changes collectively but our impending equivalent of potentially equal significance is the environ-ment. Temperatures in parts of London differ by five degrees across the city, while the challenge of how buildings adapt to energy use require a response. It will be difficult," he said.
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