Home | News | The Programme | The Universities | The Projects | Alumni | People

Polis Manchester

In Manchester the project work has focused on an area of the city known as the Northern Quarter. It’s a run-down area which became home to lots of small ‘alternative’ shops – records, fashion, books, cafes etc. – and to small cultural businesses looking for cheap space and an ‘atmosphere’. It’s a type of area increasingly common and now increasingly under threat in many European cities.

MIPC were involved in the regeneration strategy for the area in 1994-7, but things have developed a lot since then, and we continue to monitor the area through our projects.

But other projects have looked at the legacy of the Commonwealth Games – a sort of mini-Olympics for the ex-British Empire – in East Manchester, one of European largest regeneration areas. We have also looked at the area of the city centre re-built after the 1996 IRA bomb, and now presented as Manchester’s shiny, forward-looking face. Last year we looked at an area just outside the city centre which has been the subject of what the developers have claimed is an innovative approach to community regeneration.

This year we will be slightly changing the format to ask a more general question – ‘has ‘regeneration’ killed off Manchester’s creativity or moved it on to a new level’. We will use ‘expert witnesses’ as well as interviews and observation to get at an answer to this question.

<< Back