When we talk about the power of the North, inevitably that focuses on cities like Manchester - and for obvious reasons.
Manchester’s consistently voted the best city to live in the 海角视频 but we’re no longer competing just on a national scale, we’re sucking in millennials from across the globe who are snubbing London in favour of our city’s culture, universities and jobs.
But all too often the towns across Greater Manchester are feeling left behind. As Bolton and Bury football fans pleaded for help to keep their teams alive, the financial standing of the Manchester’s teams is a stark reminder of where the wealth lies.
As a city region economy, Greater Manchester is the largest outside of London and, of course, Manchester’s been a huge driving force behind the region’s success. But the whole point is that the towns surrounding Manchester get a trickle down effect and benefit from the investment and energy that’s made the city such an aspirational place to live.
Young people are drawn to city centre living but at the end of this year millennials start to turn 40. Soon enough tens of thousands of them are going to flip into family mode, either with a partner, maybe a pet and probably kids too.
There’s a massive opportunity for the towns across Greater Manchester to soak up demand from millennials wanting a bit more space and a garden only a tram or train ride away from the city. They want all the things they liked about urban living but with the nurseries, parks and schools that the city centre can’t offer.
Andy Burnham’s Town Centre Challenge is looking to do just that. Working with councils across Greater Manchester, he’s aiming to unlock the potential of town centres to deliver viable housing markets and sustainable communities.
It’s already happening. Billions of pounds are due to be spent in places like Bolton, Rochdale and Stockport to create town centre communities that are easily commutable to Manchester but without the price tags of Chorlton, Didsbury and Altrincham.
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Town centres are changing and rather than being the retail hubs they once were they can become urban communities. In the same way that Manchester is becoming a residential city, with the number of people living in the centre set to rocket, bringing housing into the town centre could be transformational.
It all sounds great, but we’ve been here before. When hard times hit, it tends to be the satellite towns where funding is cut first. So, how can we make sure we future proof town centre regeneration?
We need to raise the bar and sell an aspirational lifestyle, with award winning architecture and cool and contemporary homes alongside co-working spaces, incubator units and creative hubs. It’s about the cafes, delis and bars that create a community, taking a place and making it a home. People moving up from London don’t have any preconceptions about these places, so the offer needs to hit them as soon as they get off the train or the tram.
Greater Manchester towns have it all to play for. The financial gymnastics might still be tricky in these emerging town centres so they will need to ‘make the market’ for these homes in partnership with enlightened developers that can help redefine these places. It’ll require developers who take a longer term view of value creation and think beyond immediate returns.
Aspiring millennials want to live in aspiring towns and many have already pioneered living in ‘interesting’ locations in the city centre. If the Greater Manchester towns can become the new places millennials aspire to live, then they can get their share of the growth and funding that the city has seen over the past decades.