Birmingham - Second City??

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This makes no sense. You do realise people actually live in the Midlands, right? It's not some barren wasteland that people have to cross to get from the north to south.

Everyone in the Midlands can get to either Manchester or London, whichever is closer, much easier than someone from Durham, say, can get to Birmingham.

Reply 21

ZÃ¼rich

I'd say Edinburgh is the 2nd city of the UK.

Reply 22

MatureStudent36

Original post by Wilfred Little

Black Sabbath
Led Zep
Judas Priest
The Moody Blues
Traffic
Steve Winwood
Spencer Davis Group
The Streets
The Move
Electric Light Orchestra

Probably loads I've forgot as well.

Ocean Colour Scene
Fine Young Cannibals
Slade
Sneeker Pimps

Actually, Birmingham has been quite cutting edge at the music it's thrown out to the world.

Reply 23

username917703

Original post by MatureStudent36

Ocean Colour Scene
Fine Young Cannibals
Slade
Sneeker Pimps

Actually, Birmingham has been quite cutting edge at the music it's thrown out to the world.

Agreed, people just like to talk **** & regurgitate stuff other people say.

Bhangra music as well.

Reply 24

MatureStudent36

Original post by Wilfred Little

Agreed, people just like to talk **** & regurgitate stuff other people say.

Bhangra music as well.

I forgot about that. But back to the original question. It's because it has the second largest population, and outside of London it's the most capable city to do business in. Lots of Law and Finance jobs. That's why a lot of companies like Duetche Bank have offices there.

Edinburgh does have some similar capabilities but it's tiny ompared to Birmingham.

Reply 25

Fullofsurprises

Original post by moonkatt

Yes, if only we had an exhibition centre here in Birmingham, maybe even a really big one, we could even call it a National Exhibition Centre. Then we could build a huge indoor arena too, we could call that the National Indoor Arena, seems to have a nice ring to it all. Ooh, what about a convention centre, a really big one in the city centre, we could call that the International Convention Centre.

But, yeah, we're probably too badly placed here in the Midlands for anything like that to be built here. :tongue:

It seems like no matter how hard Birmingham tries with all these goodies and attractions, it never quite seems to make it in the national conciousness to true Second City status. Not sure why, but I suspect most people in London think of Manchester as the number 2. Perhaps it's partly a cultural thing, because Manchester has a clearer 'Northern' identity, but it's also something that appears to be accepted by the media (the BBC relocated to Salford, not Solihull), government (lots of big government offices in the North West - few in the West Midlands), travel and commerce (Manchester Airport is much bigger and busier than Birmingham Airport) and sport. (MU is a world brand - Birmingham has Aston Villa. :teehee:

)

A few years ago, a professor of population geography decided that the UK was gradually merging into a series of 'super cities'. He urged that this process be intensified and supported. Birmingham was, in his maps, merged into the M1/M6 corridors and London, to be part of 'Centrum'. He envisaged the capital of this new supercity in Milton Keynes.

Reply 26

ZÃ¼rich

Original post by MatureStudent36

Used to work at DB London and transfer to Birmingham was see as the greatest humiliation possible. :biggrin:

Reply 27

Fullofsurprises

Original post by MatureStudent36

Do you have any figures on this? It's an interesting assertion, but most sources I've read talk about the Edinburgh finance sector as being second in the UK to London. I doubt that Birmingham has a bigger one than Edinburgh, but I suppose it might depend if you include things like call centres.

Reply 28

ZÃ¼rich

Original post by Fullofsurprises

Birmingham is 90% back office. Edinburgh has a huge number of Asset Managers/Insurance companies, but probably lower total headcount. Aberdeen would give Birmingham a run for its money on front office finance jobs...

Reply 29

MatureStudent36

Original post by Fullofsurprises

It isn't just the financial stuff. It's the legal support.

I don't have the figures, but is was a quite from one of my business strategy lecturers.

His exact words were 'Birmingham is the only city outside of London that can provide all of the services required to conduct and manage a corporate takeover.'

Reply 30

Fullofsurprises

Original post by MatureStudent36

OK. I remember some stuff about law and property being big in Birmingham. Maybe it was the legal side that he was talking about? I don't recall that there's anything much like fund management, brokering, trading, investment management, etc in Birmingham now, I think there used to be, but like many things across the UK, these services have consolidated to one or two places and large cities are tending to specialise.

Interestingly, I looked up financial sector as part of GVA by region on the ONS site just now and it shows Scotland and West Yorkshire as the largest outside London.

Reply 31

MatureStudent36

Original post by Fullofsurprises

Edinburgh has a very large financial sector and a lot if jobs depending on it. Do you see why Salmonds dodging of the currency question is so important. However he's just admitted that the shared £ isn't a definte

Reply 32

Rakas21

Original post by Fullofsurprises

Leeds has the largest service outside London as a whole so i'm not surprised that there's probably a hefty financial presence.

Reply 33

Mackay

Original post by Wilfred Little

I'd say both of them are bigger than any band from Manchester tbh. 70m records sold is also pretty big I would say (Moody Blues). Think Oasis are the only one who've sold similar numbers (correct me if I'm wrong genuinely can't think of any others, Bee Gees?) but TSR > them.

This isn't about who's 'better' though, could do that until the cows come home & I'm a big fan of a lot of the Manchester music anyway particularly Joy Division & TSR. Was just meant to be pointing out there are more bands than UB40.

No yeah fair enough, I respect that. I'm actually a fan of the current Birmingham music scene (Peace, Troumaca, Swim Deep, Jaws, Superfood), I was just saying that I felt Manchester had more of an impact on pop culture (Oasis with Britpop, The Roses and Mondays with baggy, New Order with dance etc).

Reply 34

MatureStudent36

Original post by Mackay

I must be getting old. I haven't heard of any of those bands from Birmingham.

Manchester has made more of a recent impact. Birmingham has made a historic impact of greater significance. As with most things though its cyclic and changes all of the time. I'm sure the scouters will be along shortly to scream about the Mersey Beat.