Retail and Manchester’s entrepreneurial Redevelopment post 1996

Abstract

In this paper, I begin to unpack the retail boom that erupted within Manchester since
the I.R.A bomb of June 1996 and that regenerated the former industrial city into a city
that took an ‘entrepreneurial turn’ to aesthetically improve itself. This urban
renaissance and regeneration has enabled Manchester to compare and establish itself
as one the top European cities to place a business and the second most visited city
within Britain. This paper helps understand what were the driving forces behind the
redevelopment and how the city was able to fund such innovative ideas within its
regeneration that attracted vast sums of investment. Underpinning the success in
Manchester’s retail regeneration is that of the City Council being at the forefront of
ideas and defining co-operative networks between the public and private sectors of the
city that came together to rebuild and re-brand the city. The piece begins with a
historical understanding of the city and the I.R.A bomb of 1996 that has led to these
developments within the city before introducing the readings of other authors and
academics into the developments of Manchester and its entrepreneurial attitudes
towards development. The analysis and conclusion of this piece brings the research to
a close that Manchester City Council achieved its intentions of aesthetically
enhancing the city and shrugging off its old industrial image in which a retail ‘boom’
has secured this change in developing a prosperous economy within the city.