Birmingham is often termed Britain’s "second city" despite maybe older historical claims (C19th Liverpool and Glasgow or C18th Bristol) and in more recent times the omnipresent challenge from Manchester. Within this categorisation, cities around the world can often exhibit a complex, self-conscious relationship with their capital, a "Second City Syndrome" characterized by a mix of rivalry, inferiority complex, and an effort to cultivate a unique reputation that defines itself against the primary city's influence. On what basis then is a second city significant beyond merely having the 2nd largest population?

Birmingham is multi-cultural, young demographically with a central location in the mid-lands and yet it still seems to be searching for rejuvenation and resolution through a unifying vision. This tension can be seen in the historical treatment of its architectural heritage - from Victorian to Brutalism - where recurring episodes of demolition suggest a city that has struggled to reconcile with its own identity.

Considering its recent emergence from bankruptcy, is the city of 2026 unsure of itself or striding forward with confidence knowing what it needs to be? As a place with rich traditions and a chequered past, it raises the same critical questions that many other towns and cities face all around the country and ones that seem to be ever more urgent in these poorer, populist times.

Politically, the pressure of ‘being seen to be doing things’ means that there is always the danger of being seduced by the boosterism of statement buildings and shiny new skyscrapers, whilst being negligent about the small things that make up a place’s civic virtue. Of having a concern with being ‘attractive’ to outsiders rather than attractive for those already living on the inside. Whilst there’s always a need to balance the books and get the money in, the initial sugar rush of investment and regeneration cannot mask structural inequality and poverty.

As an industrial area adjacent to the city centre, the significant regeneration of Digbeth, often referred to as Birmingham’s "Creative Quarter, is a litmus test for how the city defines itself. With the imminent arrival of HS2 right next door the question is what else will be brought with it? Part of the answer can be found in the dutiful, heritage-led masterplan for the area. Whilst saying the right kind of things and showing the right kind of images however, this has raised familiar local concerns about gentrification and displacement, loss of cultural identity, rising costs, priced out residents, lack of affordable housing, poor housing variety and local engagement. Here, as often is the case, regeneration comes with a sense that the very "grit" and "weirdness" that made Digbeth a haven for low-cost opportunities in its workshops, venues and clubs, will be erased in a landscape of investor friendly high-end developments of one/two-bedroom apartments.

Does Birmingham seek to emulate urban trends elsewhere, with its refurbished arches, warehouses and canal side offering similar qualities to other former industrial areas, where ‘rawness’, ‘edge’ and ‘authenticity’ are marketed as high-value consumer spaces that command an increasingly higher price?

There is a huge opportunity to put under-utilised areas of Digbeth to better use and improve a significant part of the cityscape. Yet whilst conservation, retro-fit and adaptive reuse of buildings are all noble pursuits, they are predominantly concerned with material retention rather than the nonmaterial implications that may come with it. In being more critical of both the intention and consequence behind changes to the built environment, we can look back to the reasons for Birmingham’s very existence, namely a strategic location as a crossing point on a river, near a forest and geologically to iron ore and coal. Significantly though, it was a legislative market charter in 1166 that freed the city from feudal control and provided the real opportunities for growth. What then are the current day policies and initiatives that will bring greater prosperity to people throughout the city?

Called the city of 1000 trades, Birmingham was not built on a single large-scale industry like cotton or steel, but rather on thousands of smaller firms, which provided economic resilience as a Workshop of the World. The city's growth was fuelled by its reputation as a centre for manufacturing innovation, which drove the Industrial Revolution. Can these characteristics of scale and variety be translated into an urban renaissance with density and diversity helping to deliver a more equitable, well-designed landscape? Or will the city simply serve itself up for the usual feeding frenzy that ‘under-developed areas’ attract, and welcome in the oligopoly of real estate, construction and design?

Many second cities are rebranding themselves from industrial centres to those of innovation, culture, and "liveability," by striving for an authentic, modern identity. And when you look around the globe at places like Marseille, Milan, Montreal, Melbourne one certainly doesn’t think of these as being ‘second-best’ places. So how does Birmingham join the likes of Barcelona by being bold, better, different and a destination?

What can it learn from the recent Manhattan-isation of Manchester? Will Birmingham be seen as an alternative city, representing an alternative architecture? An alternative to the capital with all its capital. An alternative in civic values? Will it be more about local livelihoods, or more of the same ‘luxury living’?

True innovation is about speculative thinking, being progressive, doing things differently in a manner that is highly practical, meets needs and solves problems. If Birmingham’s past success was built out of the conditions of a time, then what new forms of success might emerge from the economically challenging realities of the 21st century?

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