A glowing profile in design bible Wallpaper in 2005 painted a rosy picture of Manchester. This may have been news to the Kensington set, but actually highlighted a carefully planned long-term branding project by the city. Neil Tague asks where next?
Just how cool is Manchester? Style supplements, travel magazines and TV shows all need a new favourite every so often and Manchester's done pretty well in recent years. And as a city, it's never been shy about putting itself forward. The benefits of cool are obvious, says Colin Sinclair, chief executive of inward investment agency MIDAS."The value of Manchester's cool reputation is enormous for inward investment." he says. "The creative, media and digital sector all want to be in the city because of its history as a centre of fashion and music and that rubs off because the professional and financial sectors always want to be associated with cool. Manchester's got some of the leading specialists in law and accountancy who serve a cool client base and that's not a coincidence."
Sinclair has a point. It's rare for lawyers to ever be spoken of as cool, yet there are a few in Manchester whose names trip readily off the tongue - whether it's for getting the wealthy or famous off drink-driving charges like Nick Freeman or Jeanette Miller, or music industry law, such as Turner Parkinson partner Andy Booth, who was named as Manchester's coolest lawyer in City Life. Is Manchester cooler than other cities or has it simply cultivated that image?
Booth says: "How do you define cool? If cool means independent-minded and not concerning yourself with image, then Manchester is cooler than its rivals. What has allowed Leeds to grow is the boom in financial institutions - that's their cultural heritage - whereas Manchester's heritage is independent spirit. And that's not just a few bands, but cultural and political movements and advancements like the computer and Alan Turing's work in the war. Independent people with amazing new ideas."
Manchester's image is no accident, says councillor Pat Karney of Manchester City Council: "We cultivated the Manchester brand through the 1990s and beyond but it's what suits the energetic personality of the city. Mancunians like to be seen as a can-do, aspirational city. Is it "cool'? The language changes but I think our achievements speak for themselves.
"We've proved ourselves as an events city. We've just hosted the first Sky Festival, an event that could have gone anywhere in the UK, and I think you are seeing other cities trying to develop distinct brands. But Manchester was there first - good luck to them, but it's our job to stay ahead."
Some facts: the University of Manchester is the UK's most applied- to university, and was the Higher Education Institution of the Year in the Times' higher awards for 2005. In 2003 Manchester topped the BoHo Index, which ranked cities on ethnic diversity, gay friendliness and patent applications.
"Graduate retention is increasing because young people love the city," says Sinclair. "That leads to institutions like the Bank of New York choosing Manchester. A cool image is vital to modern brands - Manchester is the only non-capital city to have a Google office - and I don't think we're far from attracting the likes of Microsoft. The BBC relocation will only add to that."
While the BBC's potential move north has been well covered elsewhere, the fact that the Greater Manchester conurbation was and is seen as the only possible destination speaks volumes, says Alice Morrison, chief executive of film and TV funder North West Vision,
"Manchester has a really strong history in broadcasting. When the Communications Act of 2003 meant a certain amount of TV production had to leave London, the North West upped its game," she says. "We are the biggest regional producer - Manchester filming alone generated £330m inward investment in 2005 and there's a tremendous growth in independent production."
Filming also gives positive exposure to those outside the city who are yet to experience it for themselves. Sinclair says: "There was a time when people heard Manchester and thought "cobbled streets' because Coronation Street was all there was to go off. Now we're seeing filming and it's the cool programmes - Life on Mars, Cutting It, Casanova. That all gives a positive image."
For Andrew Stokes, chief executive of Marketing Manchester, what sets Manchester apart is the passion it inspires in newcomers, particularly students. "Getting a fresh supply of people in who become passionate advocates of Manchester has a twofold benefit. Those who go away with huge affection for the city and educate others and those who were students here who stay - people like Andy Spinoza [of SKV PR] and developer Tom Bloxham - they are Mancunians by choice, not by birth," he says.
July 2006's Insider Power 100 spoke of the new Manchester \xe9lite, how creative personalities have, over the last decade, got close to and even penetrated the executive areas of local government. Sinclair was a record label owner and nightclub promoter, Stokes a former manager of the Royal Opera House. Is this an area that sets Manchester apart?
"People who can grasp an opportunity will succeed in Manchester," says Stokes. "It's a city that is open to ideas and people with passion. It recognises transferable skills and takes a chance on people who come from different backgrounds."
Sinclair agrees: "What made a difference was things like the McEnroe Group ten years ago. People like Elliot Rashman, Tony Wilson, Trevor Johnson, Nick Johnson, Ian Simpson had ideas on how Manchester could move forward. The leadership listened to it and since then there has always been a close link between the city council and the creative community." Stokes calls this relationship "the Manchester way".
Pat Karney at the council says: "I think the way creative people are involved is unique. There's a generation of councillors like me who knew our way around the cultural parts of Manchester in the 1980s, mainly through Wilson badgering us about the Ha\xe7ienda. That opened the channels up and it's always been important to us to keep them open."
Manchester has also been at the forefront of one of the most important property trends of the last century, one that has had a huge impact on the complexion of the city.
Phil Griffin, passionate Mancunian and architectural critic, says: "Over the last 50 years the quality of residential schemes in this country has been absolutely diabolical. The one and only movement to turn back that tide has been the trend towards city centre apartments, with recessed lighting and kitchen living spaces."
It's something for which city living pioneers such as Tom Bloxham and Carol Ainscow can justifiably claim credit. But although Manchester led the way, most other cities have leapt on the bandwagon. And with intercity competition so fierce, planning is fairly relaxed. The issue now for Manchester is how to distinguish itself from the competition now the volume housebuilders have muscled in ahead of the artisans.
It's the way they've always operated, says Griffin. "The schemes by volume housebuilders do look extremely "of a kind' but how could you expect otherwise?" he asks. "On a hazy day it could be easy to mistake parts of Manchester for Leeds, or Leeds for Birmingham. There are still some individualistic schemes but not from the volume builders. What we need to do is assist and criticise the housebuilders."
One way Manchester could steal a march could be in taking a lead in tackling the uniformity of the high street. Griffin says: "The principal anxiety I have is what goes on at street level and how that could be better directed. We used to have city architects offices, which to all intents and purposes no longer exist, while planning departments have shrunk in size and power. We would be well advised to look at that, or at least at having design champions for cities. I believe that is a more pressing debate than a Regional Assembly."
Does Manchester's headlong rush to develop put its heritage at risk? A recent case is the Unitarian Chapel on Upper Brook Street, council-owned for 30 years and allowed to fall into such a state of disrepair the roof has been removed to make the building safe.
Griffin says that heritage is an issue, but shouldn't be the only issue. "Surviving is a skill for cities," he says. "The economic needs of cities always drive change or else they don't survive. There inevitably has to be a lot of compromise - our cities have too many bad buildings but they have too many listed buildings as well.
"There isn't just the heritage question. While it's shameful that the Unitarian Chapel is falling into the road and that the first act of the University of Manchester's redevelopment was the destruction of a very good building, where cities are driving forward on inward investment, development will be as unfettered as possible. Any city that is moving forward needs to see the benefits of heritage, but needs to translate how it can be a part of the city's future prospects, rather than just being something to look at."
Where next for Manchester? Karney says "we will continue to bid for everything", while Stokes' Marketing Manchester machine, with a staff of 70, continues to be involved in a phenomenal range of activities that far outstrips the activity of its counterpart bodies in Leeds and Birmingham.
The next major staging post will be the Manchester International Festival, an arts event that the city hopes to host every two years, with the first staging being in June 2007. Alex Poots has been drafted in as festival director.
"Manchester had great success with the Commonwealth Games and got an impression of the international exposure and regional feel-good factor built up by a great event," he says. "It wanted a cultural festival, but something that was uniquely Manchester. I thought that would be best served by a festival of entirely new work."
About 85 per cent of the funding is in place, well ahead of schedule. The first two events are in place: a film by Greg Hill, a young director championed by Mike Leigh, and a stage production of Chinese parable Monkey King that will be presented as a "multimedia circus", co-funded by the state opera houses of Paris and Berlin.
"This shows we are a genuine international event," says Poots. "Manchester can look Berlin and Paris in the eye now - it has its own streetwise dynamic recognised across Europe."
Stephen Benson is national senior partner of law firm Cobbetts, which has signed up as a sponsor of the festival. He says that Manchester is lifting itself above the competition with its events calendar.
"After the fillip of the Commonwealth Games, it is setting out its stall to be truly international," he says. "The cosmopolitanism of the city has always been an economic driver and the city council has put great store in developing the Art Gallery, the Arena, the Bridgewater Hall. The city can now sweat those assets."
The Bridgewater Hall in 2006 celebrates its tenth birthday. Built to provide the city with a no-compromise classical music venue with no amplification, in the words of chief executive Nick Reed, it has become "one of Manchester's iconic buildings".
"The hall has allowed our three resident orchestras to develop so they're now in their best-ever state," he says.
"And, with the corporate events and concerts like Morrissey held here, we've become part of the city's fabric. It's reinvigorated this part of the city and I believe Manchester now has a range of venues that are a match for anywhere."
