Introduction

To understand the challenges facing former industrial cities today, we need to grasp the essential threads of their history and role in building their countries’ wealth. Their fall from a great height made their recovery all the more unlikely. The seven cities, Leipzig, Bremen, Sheffield, Belfast, Bilbao, Torino and SaintÉtienne, played an important part in their country's history even before the industrial revolution. Five of the seven cities occupied strategic crossing points on earlier international trading routes. For example, Torino was historically a major European centre, as a gateway to Italy through the Alps. It became the capital of the powerful Duchy of Savoy in the mid-16th century, and its Baroque city centre is still one of Torino's most important assets. Leipzig was located at another European crossroad and became the crossing point between eastern and western Europe for medieval trade fares. It has recreated this role today. Bremen was one of only three German city-states, a member of the powerful Hanseatic League. Bilbao was the major port for the ancient Basque nation, a great sea-faring people. And Belfast, originally a Viking port, became the vital capital city of a province of the UK that would dominate much of our modern history. The two, purely industrial cities of Sheffield and Saint-Étienne, produced pre-industrial iron-based and craft goods, becoming famous for their production at the advent of the industrial revolution. Table 2.1 summarises these diverse roles.

The seven cities played many different, intrinsically transforming industrial tasks over the period of Europe's greatest manufacturing growth in the 19th and 20th centuries. These cities came to dominate national economies as a result of their prolific output and transforming contributions for more than 150 years. They were the hubs of the new economy, the new politics and new urban forms. Their rich resources, natural harbours and trading routes, trans-continental gateways and political leadership catapulted them to the forefront of their national economies in the 19th century.

The seven cities became industrial giants, building on their strategic and productive advantages. They became internationally renowned for spawning the biggest, most powerful industries and inventing the most dramatic breakthroughs in modern production, as the world rapidly industrialised. The economic power of these cities seemed for a long time to be invincible.