"My Home Town" a Birmingham Travel Page by leffe3

Growing up in Birmingham in the 1960s and 1970s was growing up in a city that very much had the '2nd city' syndrome (that is, 2nd best), living, as it did, in the shadow not only of the mighty London to the south, but also the somewhat cooler Manchester and Liverpool (home of the Beatles) to the north. Even in sport, there was the once mighty Aston Villa and the never-achieved-much Birmingham City, whilst those other 2 northern cities boasted 3 great teams and a fourth about to break through: Lancashire had a far better cricketing history than Warwickshire.... Need I go on :)

But as a teenager I was proud of Brum (local name). Liverpool had had its heyday with the Beatles, but in the late 70s it was Brum (local name) - Ska of The Beat, The Specials (OK, they were from down the road in Coventry), and others: reggae of Steel Pulse and UB40: even pop crap like Wizard and ELO and the sound of heavy metal has, apparently, its genesis in Birmingham (Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and members of Led Zeppelin). And in the early 80s came Duran Duran....

Pride in the city changed and by the time I was 18 in 1978 I was very glad to leave home and head north for university. I rarely returned and never lived there again. 2009 was my first visit to Brum in 10 years. And it was a surprise - both good and bad.

Birmingham is believed to have come from the hamlet Breme Inga Ham (Anglo-Saxon for the home of the sons of Breme) recorded as far back as the 6th century.

To be found in the very heart of England and easy access to coal and iron lead the settlement to develop as a place of manufacturing and, by the 17th century, was an important centre for guns and weaponry. Birmingham is very much the centre of the industrial revolution, known, in the 19th century, as 'the workshop of the world' and it grew to be the major industrial centre of the British Empire and after.

It was therefore a wealthy city, reflected by the vast public buildings built in the late 19th century. It was the centre for the British car industry, weaponry, jewelry, but also the four main British banks were founded in Birmingham. Its central location meant it became an important transport hub -the trains arrived in the middle of the 19th century and the city has the most extensive canal system in the world - believe it or not there are more miles of canals in Birmingham than there are in Venice. The mid 1800s saw the population reach 500,000.

But where there's heavy industry and World War II, there's heavy damage and Birmingham suffered enormous damage between 1939-45. But as the home of post-war heavy industry, the city boomed again in the 1950s and 1960s and reinvented itself. Out with the old and in with the new was the city's motto. Sadly, not with much taste - or certainly taste of the day. Up went concrete monstrosities - shopping centres, housing estates, office blocks, down came many of the fine Victorian edifices that survived the war.
(Birmingham is used as examples in many degree courses about failed civic and public planning).

But, I am glad to say that much is being addressed by the new Birmingham. Gone is the Bull Ring shopping centre - a 60s nightmare: the canals are being spruced up for tourism (Gas Street Basin in the city and Brindley Place): in Centennial Square you'll find the Symphony Hall (home of the CBSO) and Repertory Theatre and the grime of heavy industries have been scraped away from the CBD (the fact that most of the heavy industries have gone contribute to this!!). There's a lot of derelict land and buildings around the city centre which has to be ripe for development - you can just feel it in the air.

And extraordinarily, the city is the 4th most visited destination for foreign tourists in the UK and came a very creditable 55th in the 2007 Mercer Index most-livable city.

It's not bad for a place that has a lot going for it, is trying to re-invent itself but is, in the interim, still a bit of a dump. But it's moving in the right direction, and with the CBSO, Birmingham Royal Ballet, the Ikon Gallery all world renowned and the 2026 Be Birmingham a strategy for development, it'll be interesting to see Brum in another 5 years or so....