Sheffield was the steel industry heartland of Great Britain, until the 1960s, partly because of available abundant local iron ore and coal reserves, and reliable energy supply. During that time, Sheffield saw it's population exploding from 61 000 in 1801 to 580 000 in 1951, and enjoyed a booming economy that made it one of the most prosperous cities in Great Britain. However, from 1960s, the British steel industry lost it's significance to the country's economy, and declined drastically due to availability of cheaper steel from elsewhere.
Following the decline of the steel industry in Great Britain, Sheffield deteriorated rapidly as it's economic base collapsed. That led to abandonment of numerous industrial and commercial buildings in the city, that in turn became derelict over time. The collapsed economy, also led into deterioration of the housing stock, as well as the infrastructure and utility facilities. Suddenly, the once prosperous and beautiful city in Yorkshire, became one of the poorest and ugliest cities in Great Britain, where nobody with the economic capacity to move out, wanted to continue living in it.
However, despite the adverse economic downturn, Sheffield as a city, was not ready yet for its demise. The city in a very impressive manner, reinvented itself, and found new ways for economic development and prosperity, that include creating conducive conditions for high technology businesses and industries, providing higher education (two universities), and luckily, substantial central government funding to the city's public sector services.
Due to these re-inventive initiatives, by 2004, Sheffield had became one of the fastest growing cities in Great Britain, in terms of commercial and residential development. Some parts of the city, e.g, Hallam, had by that time also became some of the richest areas in Great Britain, outside London.
To contribute and consolidate the improving economic circumstances in the city, the Sheffield City Council responded accordingly, by initiating a massive urban renewal program entailing projects in various areas of the city, aimed at rejuvenating the areas physically, economically, socially, culturally and environmentally. The mainly heritage-led urban renewal program, has, in our opinion, been very successful so far, as shown by the quality of the resultant urban solids and voids, as well as the recovery of the local economy. Socially the program seem to have taken the need for inclusiveness into account in order to avoid gentrification that is often common in such programs. This aspect of the renewal program can not, however, be concretely verified by this article.
In the video above, selected photos of some refurbished sections of the city, especially the city centre, are presented. The photos demonstrate the physical success of the urban renewal program in Sheffield as of 2016.
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