Back to the future – Birmingham 2010

In recent weeks I have thought a lot about irresponsible individuals who have acted unlawfully to deprive communities of thousands of the homes they need, destroyed new educational facilities, and then, unrepentant, show their disdain when court decisions go against them.

However, rather than pen another commentary on the judicial reviews of Pickles’ abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) or Gove’s cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF)programme , I decided on my own bout of destruction – cleaning out and sending a shed full of old papers and reports to the recycle facilities. The trouble with mindless destruction – in a sense reflecting the RSS/BSF experience – is that you end up throwing out a lot that is good alongside the material you think you no longer want or need.

And so it was, I lingered on a cobweb-ridden ‘Birmingham 2010’ strategic analysis produced when I was working for the City Council in 1990/91.

It is a surprisingly contemporary read. The narrative is of the city successfully managing major pressures – new technology, globalisation, social polarisation (including a ‘squash courts versus Handsworth riots’ example), and climate change. By 2010, inclusive effective and powerful governance and partnership working was to produce a ‘great European City’ at the heart of a cohesive city region. There is virtually nothing in the City Council’s 1991 vision that would not be embraced and adopted by the city today.

There have been divergences from the 1991 scenarios. Firstly the mistaken underlying assumption of continuing population decline has been replaced by growth. The city is even more a centre for young people than was envisaged in 1990. The extent of EU integration and of a corresponding decline of UK national government influence – both providing new opportunities and powers for progressive city government ‘leading’ dynamic regions – was overstated. The confidence in a continuing manufacturing core at the heart of the city’s economic production has not been sustained; and the reliance of the city on the public sector for employment growth was not envisaged.

Massive progress has been delivered. Birmingham still positions itself as England’s second city, and can make a case as a “successful European centre in economic, cultural and environmental terms”. Yet, the 1990s strategy stated this “will be worth little on its own…[except]…as a means of providing a richer more fulfilling life to all Birmingham people”. Sadly, priority socio-economic performance concerns that were to be addressed then remain as potent as ever.

In relation to the national economy and other UK core cities, Birmingham continues to have low and declining productivity per worker; relatively small numbers of high growth companies, and the lowest core city proportion of employment in knowledge intensive industries (this being a major part of an absolute decline in private sector employment). With high levels of  worklessness, and a poor skills profile, the city is the ninth most deprived district in the country but, shockingly, first for income and employment deprivation. It has one of the most unequal population profiles of all cities (60/63 on the Centre for Cities Index).

In 1990, the city strategy wondered “whether [in 2010] Birmingham will be part of the depressed north or the prosperous south”. I would like to think this debate has moved on considerably in our cities (if not sometimes in national government). But perhaps Birmingham is now at a ‘tipping point’ as it adjusts its city strategy to the new economic development landscape.

London can be a successful world city with levels of deprivation and inequality not dissimilar to Birmingham. Bristol, exactly the same distance from London as Birmingham, appears to be able to position itself credibly as ‘part of a prosperous south’; Manchester and Leeds in particular embody new approaches to economic leadership in the ‘north’.

Any contemporary refresh of Birmingham’s city strategy needs to find a credible way of marrying European ambitions, distinctive national roles and functions, with real delivery of transformation in the experience and opportunity for all Birmingham residents. My copy of the 1990/91 document shall be spared the trip to the recycling bin until such a prospectus is produced and implementation is underway.