The Classic Slum? Heritage Discourses, Ideologies of Transition and the Remaking of Post-Industrial Salford (1985-2021)’

O'Reilly, Carole

Abstract

This paper examines Salford’s attempt to re-invent itself as a culture and media centre with an emphasis on the role of civic identities and cultural dissonance. The spatial turn in historical and cultural studies has provoked a return to the idea of space as having political as well as social and economic dimensions. The paper investigates the attempts to rebrand Salford as part of the more prosperous Manchester and the continual eliding of the two cities in the British press as part of this process. It stresses the narratives and counter-narratives produced by this process and connects them to ideas about civic identity and the city as a place of cultural contradictions.
The attempt to establish Salford as a media-centric space has resurrected controversies about the role of cultural memory and the clash of discourses that frequently supplement these urban re-inventions. The paper closes with a consideration of the social and economic impact of the BBC’s move to Salford and the ways in which the replacement of Salford’s industrial past by the futuristic buildings of MediaCityUK and the associated high-value apartment buildings that accompanied them has exposed the contradictions at the heart of such regeneration schemes.

• Deposit Date: Jul 17, 2023
• Publisher: Routledge
• Book Title: Histories and Legacies of Post-Industrial Cities
• Contract Date: Jul 24, 2023