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ldinternet · 06-08-2001, 03:27 PM

I'm from Manchester in Northern England.

A cut and paste job from Excite:

Whether you approach from the north or south, your first glimpse of MANCHESTER takes in the monuments to a history of prosperity, decline and revival that is still unfolding. Stoic tower blocks and empty shells of mills and factories reach for the skyline beside rows of shabby back-to-back houses whose slate roofs and cobbled back alleys glisten in the seemingly ever-present rain. All this reinforces traditional images of the struggling post-industrial city, but Manchester is being treated to an urban facelift unequalled in Britain, so ? displacing decrepitude at a rapid rate ? old buildings are being cleaned, new ones built, the canals tidied up and inner-city estates revamped in a concerted effort to pull Manchester out of the doldrums of the 1960s and 1970s. In part these efforts were prompted by high crime rates in ugly, peripheral housing estates, and by the city's selection as the venue for the Commonwealth Games in the year 2002, following a succession of failed bids to host the Olympics. But in the city centre, the main engine of change was the devastating IRA bomb, which exploded in June 1996 and wiped out much of the city's commercial infrastructure. The redesign and rebuilding of the city centre has been quick and impressive and the changes can only improve the already buzzing social and cultural scene, with its cutting-edge sports arenas, concert halls, theatres, clubs and leisure facilities, plus England's largest student population and a blossoming gay community whose spending-power has transformed a once-derelict part of the city into an unrivalled Gay Village.

The city's lack of homogeneity is surprising, considering its rapid growth from what was little more than a village in 1750 to the world's major cotton-milling centre in only a hundred years. The spectacular rise of Cottonopolis, as it became known, came from the production of competitively priced imitations of expensive Indian calicoes, using machines evolved from Arkwright's first steam-powered cotton mill, which opened in 1783. The rapid industrialization of the area brought prosperity for a few but a life of misery for the majority, and the discontent of the poor came to a head in 1819 when eleven people were killed at Peterloo, in what began as a peaceful workers' demonstration against the oppressive Corn Laws. Exploitation had worsened still further by the time the 23-year-old Friedrich Engels came here in 1842 to work in his father's cotton plant, and the suffering he witnessed ? recorded in his Condition of the Working Class in England ? was a seminal influence on his later collaboration with Karl Marx, the Communist Manifesto.

Waterways and railway viaducts form the matrix into which the city's principal buildings have been bedded ? as early as 1772 the Duke of Bridgewater had a canal cut to connect the city to the coal mines at Worsley, and the world's first passenger rail line, connecting Manchester with Liverpool, was opened in 1830. The Manchester Ship Canal, constructed to entice ocean-going vessels into Manchester and away from burgeoning Liverpool, was completed in 1894, and played a crucial part in reviving Manchester's competitiveness. A century later, with the docks, mills and canals no longer in industrial use, it's the splendid behemoths of Victorian Gothic standing proud amid often unsightly modern architecture that echo the city's past. Looking towards a brighter future, Manchester's planners are taking more sensitive steps to improve the lot of communities in inner-city suburbs such as Hulme and Moss Side, both scarred by gang violence and drug dealing, by giving tenants a say in the design of new estates and shopping centres, and encouraging the development of local businesses. These projects, like the schemes to ease the problems of homelessness that have mushroomed since the late Eighties, are the first steps towards a change that will take years to come into full effect.

THE CITY

If Manchester can be said to have a centre, it's St Peter's Square and the cluster of buildings focused on it ? the Town Hall (with the Visitor Centre in its modern extension), Central Library and the Midland Hotel, originally built in the railway age for visitors to Britain's greatest industrial city. South of here, the huge vault of the former Central Station now functions as the G-Mex exhibition centre, with the Hallé's new home, Bridgewater Hall, opposite. There's been a general spruce-up spreading west to the Castlefield district, home to the city's two most popular tourist attractions ? the Museum of Science and Industry and Granada Studio Tours. Many of the city's remaining attractions, museums and galleries, and the majority of eating and drinking spots, are scattered over a broad expanse to the north along the central spine of Deansgate and east towards Piccadilly Gardens (from where most city bus routes originate). Other diversions string out along the main southern artery Oxford Road, strictly Oxford Street until a quarter of a mile out but always referred to by the former name.

06-08-2001, 03:27 PM
ldinternet Confirmed User Join Date: Apr 2001 Posts: 8,245	I'm from Manchester in Northern England. A cut and paste job from Excite: Whether you approach from the north or south, your first glimpse of MANCHESTER takes in the monuments to a history of prosperity, decline and revival that is still unfolding. Stoic tower blocks and empty shells of mills and factories reach for the skyline beside rows of shabby back-to-back houses whose slate roofs and cobbled back alleys glisten in the seemingly ever-present rain. All this reinforces traditional images of the struggling post-industrial city, but Manchester is being treated to an urban facelift unequalled in Britain, so ? displacing decrepitude at a rapid rate ? old buildings are being cleaned, new ones built, the canals tidied up and inner-city estates revamped in a concerted effort to pull Manchester out of the doldrums of the 1960s and 1970s. In part these efforts were prompted by high crime rates in ugly, peripheral housing estates, and by the city's selection as the venue for the Commonwealth Games in the year 2002, following a succession of failed bids to host the Olympics. But in the city centre, the main engine of change was the devastating IRA bomb, which exploded in June 1996 and wiped out much of the city's commercial infrastructure. The redesign and rebuilding of the city centre has been quick and impressive and the changes can only improve the already buzzing social and cultural scene, with its cutting-edge sports arenas, concert halls, theatres, clubs and leisure facilities, plus England's largest student population and a blossoming gay community whose spending-power has transformed a once-derelict part of the city into an unrivalled Gay Village. The city's lack of homogeneity is surprising, considering its rapid growth from what was little more than a village in 1750 to the world's major cotton-milling centre in only a hundred years. The spectacular rise of Cottonopolis, as it became known, came from the production of competitively priced imitations of expensive Indian calicoes, using machines evolved from Arkwright's first steam-powered cotton mill, which opened in 1783. The rapid industrialization of the area brought prosperity for a few but a life of misery for the majority, and the discontent of the poor came to a head in 1819 when eleven people were killed at Peterloo, in what began as a peaceful workers' demonstration against the oppressive Corn Laws. Exploitation had worsened still further by the time the 23-year-old Friedrich Engels came here in 1842 to work in his father's cotton plant, and the suffering he witnessed ? recorded in his Condition of the Working Class in England ? was a seminal influence on his later collaboration with Karl Marx, the Communist Manifesto. Waterways and railway viaducts form the matrix into which the city's principal buildings have been bedded ? as early as 1772 the Duke of Bridgewater had a canal cut to connect the city to the coal mines at Worsley, and the world's first passenger rail line, connecting Manchester with Liverpool, was opened in 1830. The Manchester Ship Canal, constructed to entice ocean-going vessels into Manchester and away from burgeoning Liverpool, was completed in 1894, and played a crucial part in reviving Manchester's competitiveness. A century later, with the docks, mills and canals no longer in industrial use, it's the splendid behemoths of Victorian Gothic standing proud amid often unsightly modern architecture that echo the city's past. Looking towards a brighter future, Manchester's planners are taking more sensitive steps to improve the lot of communities in inner-city suburbs such as Hulme and Moss Side, both scarred by gang violence and drug dealing, by giving tenants a say in the design of new estates and shopping centres, and encouraging the development of local businesses. These projects, like the schemes to ease the problems of homelessness that have mushroomed since the late Eighties, are the first steps towards a change that will take years to come into full effect. THE CITY If Manchester can be said to have a centre, it's St Peter's Square and the cluster of buildings focused on it ? the Town Hall (with the Visitor Centre in its modern extension), Central Library and the Midland Hotel, originally built in the railway age for visitors to Britain's greatest industrial city. South of here, the huge vault of the former Central Station now functions as the G-Mex exhibition centre, with the Hallé's new home, Bridgewater Hall, opposite. There's been a general spruce-up spreading west to the Castlefield district, home to the city's two most popular tourist attractions ? the Museum of Science and Industry and Granada Studio Tours. Many of the city's remaining attractions, museums and galleries, and the majority of eating and drinking spots, are scattered over a broad expanse to the north along the central spine of Deansgate and east towards Piccadilly Gardens (from where most city bus routes originate). Other diversions string out along the main southern artery Oxford Road, strictly Oxford Street until a quarter of a mile out but always referred to by the former name.