Planning Birmingham as a cosmopolitan city: recovering the depths of its diversity?

In the last 20 years, the City of Birmingham has been re-branded into a forward-looking regional centre that is embedded within Europe and the global economy. The first phase of Birmingham's reinvention involved the construction of flagship developments, such as the National Exhibition Centre, the International Convention Centre and Symphony Hall. These prestige developments, although instrumental in enhancing Birmingham's international profile, have been heavily criticised for being spatially and socially out of reach of many local residents (Duffy, 1995, Fretter, 1993, Lister, 1991, Loftman and Nevin, 1996, Smyth, 1994). However, with the second phase of Birmingham's re-imagining the local authority has sought to involve a much wider constituency through building a new ethos for the city (Bhattacharyya, 2000).