Talk:Second city/Archive 1

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Definition of 'Second city'

There seems to be some confusion as to what second city means. Often the capital is not the most important city in the country. For that reason, I have removed: Shanghai, Dubai, Guayaquil, Douala, and Tel-Aviv as second cities. I also removed Omdurman because it is part of the Khartoum metropolitan area

Manchester/Birmingham

I've tried to make the reference to Manchester being further from London more NPOV - I'm from Birmingham myself anyway, so this is somebody else's POV I'm adding! Besides, there is some truth to it - take a look when a mega rock band does a world tour - they play London, Manchester, Cardiff and Glasgow in order of precedence, and then they think about Birmingham. sjorford 14:59, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The reason they play in that order is because of the size of the venues and as Manchester has the largest Indoor Arena in the whole of Europe they play there becuase they are all greedy sods and what maximum ticket sales for minimum effort! User talk:212.219.47.2 12:05, 28 Apr 2006 (UTC)

We should probably distinguish between a metropolitan county and a conurbation. For example, Salford, Trafford and Stockport are part of the Manchester conurbation in a way that Wigan, Bolton, Bury and Rochdale are not. Morwen - Talk 17:24, 16 Jul 2004 (UTC)


In November 2004, Googling "second city" suggested that the association with Birmingham prevailed within the UK, whereas the Manchester connection was predominant from an international viewpoint. Andy G 19:59, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What London influence

Who argues that Birmingham is more influenced by London than Manchester is? In what meaningful way is Birmingham influenced by London? If anything it must be the other way around. London types are much more likely to find themselves in Manchester than in Birmingham because Manchester has more cultural importance (TV, theatre, music etc). Very confused by this section. Mattley 20:43, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

City of London 'silliness'

Why is it 'silly' to say that the cities listed (Glasgow, Sheffield, Leeds, Liverpool, etc.) are all larger than London? It's *true*. -- Ngb 18:04, 02 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Only if you accept the argument that 'London' refers only to the City of London and not to Greater London. It's an argument we're all fairly familiar with, and it is just that, an argument. What was objectionable about the bit that was removed was that the text said London but linked to City of London. Surely a little misleading given that most people rightly or wrongly take London to refer to Greater London or beyond? Likely to prove confusing, especially to non-Brits. Possibly the point could be rephrased with a less POV link but I hope that doesn't happen. The principal place to bash out a consensus on London is surely at the pages referring to it, not here, and that hasn't happened. Hold that thought, I'm going to go check that. Mattley 18:41, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's a fair criticism (confusion about London over City of London) but would be better resolved by editing the article to say City of London rather than just London (as Khendon has now done) rather than deleting the bit entirely and deriding it in the history as 'silliness'. -- Ngb 14:02, 03 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough, I'll put city of London as the text of the link. It seems obvious to me that in a discussion specifically about formal city boundaries that that would be what was meant, but perhaps I was mistaken. --Khendon 12:10, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Shouldn't have called it silliness. I lazily followed a previous user's terminology on that so, sorry. However, I don't think the disambiguation removes the problem because it still asserts that the City of London/Greater London situation is the same as the Provincial city/wider conurbation one. There may be a good argument for that, but ther are good arguments against. Should we really get into it here? This whole section leads us into suggesting that Manchester, which we've already said is one of the two candidates for second city, is smaller and (by implication) less important than a whole number of other cities, and that London, the capital, is smaller than all of them. This is where the silliness creeps in. The argument about size could go on and on, but would it really settle the second city argument? Nope. The Manchester survey stuff also seems pretty unhelpful. What exactly does it add? I'd really like to see this stuff scaled down considerably. 'Birmingham and Manchester both claim to be Britain's second city' would probably do it. Arguments for and against can be (are have been) addressed at those pages. Mattley 14:44, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The reason it needs to be there is so it is clear that formal city boundaries aren't necessarily the most useful measure. But I think I'd agree that ditching the detailed arguments might be a good way forward. --Khendon 15:13, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Current revision looks good to me. Very well done in fact. Brings the UK section into line with the rest of the article, which is important. Mattley 16:29, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I concur. Much better. -- Ngb, 17:08, 03 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Inclusion of English poll

Andy G; there's been a consensus that we should avoid too many details. If you don't agree, perhaps you could justify it here... --Khendon 20:01, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The English second city is a matter of opinion, and we have a source which gives the results of an opinion poll. It's not an extra detail, it's precisely to the point. It's also information with a cited source. Wikipedia:Cite_sources says "you should actively search for authoritative references to cite". It can be a "see also" if you like. Andy G 20:41, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Whether a MORI poll can be called authoritative is highly questionable, I'd have said. --Ngb 21:23, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I agree. It is a poll of just over 1,000 people commissioned by Marketing Manchester in the immediate aftermath of the Commonwealth Games. It's hardly beyond question. If it stays in, someone is bound to try to make the above points, or reintroduce size or some other factor on behalf of Birmingham. I don't think that would be helpful. The poll is already mentioned at Manchester - so an interested reader only has to follow the link. Incidentally, if I'm reading the report right, this survey also concludes that an enormous 37% of people questioned went for some other city altogether. Weird. Mattley 22:03, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
When I put the poll back here as an External Link it had been edited out of Manchester. Now it's back again, but without a link to the source so the "interested reader" doesn't get to find out the sample size or who comissioned the poll without coming here. Leave the link. It doesn't say that the poll "is authoritative" and decides the issue; rather, it provides information enough for the reader to make up their own mind - which is clearly what you have have done with it. Andy G 23:45, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Yeah, but I know and care enough about the subject to chase it up. It is very likely that more casual readers, seeing that apparently an "English poll gives title to Manchester" will conclude that the question has been settled. We surely can't cite a source of this kind without indicating that it is partial and has serious limitations. Certainly the name of the link would need to be changed. I don't think we can phrase the link in such a way as to avoid POV - and that is a big problem. Also, the link doesn't give all the information you might need to decide the issue. Somebody could feasibly add
  • "Well they would say that" - Birmingham responds to second city poll
  • Sceptical response from national press to above poll

We don't want to get into all that, do we? As for it not being at the Manchester page - I'll check that out, but it's a separate issue, surely? Mattley 13:46, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  • Back from editing Manchester. It's gone a bit crazy over there, hasn't it? Mattley 14:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Who exactly thinks Manchester is the second city

Who exactly is it who claims that Manchester is the second city, as far as I can tell only User:Khendon seems to believe this, and has made it into a big issue, I certainly dont think that there is much of a controversy amongst the general public.

As Birmingham is clearly much larger than Manchester by any measure of population, the only "support" for the Manchester second city claim as far as I can see is one somewhat questionable opinion poll. G-Man 19:19, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You'll find many references on the web that claim that Manchester is the second city. I agree the opinion poll isn't exactly authoritative, but there is clearly enough dispute that taking a position would be POV. I'm not making it into a "big issue", I'm trying to make the articles accurate and NPOV. --Khendon 13:37, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think you're wrong there, G-Man. There may not be much of a 'controversy' amongst the general public, but Manchester and Birmingham are clearly both widely regarded as second city to an extent that isn't true of any other city. I don't think that is seriously disputed by most editors of this page. The problems arise when we try to indicate which city has a better claim. At that point questionable 'facts' and dubious arguments get brought in on both sides which is why we've tried to avoid doing that (see discussion above).
I'm not sure why you're getting at Khendon, he's been working to build and maintain consensus. He didn't add the poll you refer to, in fact he already removed it once. I'd remove it myself, but I can't guarrantee I'll be around to argue it out. Mattley 14:46, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It doesn't really matter 'who exactly thinks Manchester is the second city'. The fact is that it is impossible to say which of Birmingham or Manchester is the 'second city' without some clear definition of what 'second city' means, and no such definition exists. Therefore, for the article to swing either way would be POV and inappropriate. The short summary we have currently is by far the best answer to this dispute in my view, except I would remove the external link to the poll. --Ngb 15:39, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well the usual definition is population, which is the criteria in all the other countries, and by that measure Birmingham is clearly the second largest city, that is fact, what other criteria exist exactly? wikipedia is here to report facts, we should however say that some people believe that Manchester is the second city. G-Man 16:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The article itself says that 'criteria for second city status include population size, economic or commercial importance, political importance or some cultural sense': i.e. not just population size. It's ridiculous for the article to assert a second city for the UK based on population size when it itself says that population size is not the only statistic. I'm not sure what 'facts' you're in possession of that this article isn't already reporting: we say that Birmingham is the larger in terms of population, but that the issue is nevertheless unclear. --Ngb 17:24, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Birmingham has held the title of second city in the uk for many years, by the media, sports and business community. For this reason many hundreds of well established companies use the term "second city" in their title, no one i have ever met from Manchester (by far a much smaller city by population and economy) or anywhere else have considered Birmingham NOT to be the UK's second city??? As i have said before, the title holds little meaning but if it IS to be used here then Birmingham holds that title in the UK, i think that the BBC (second hq in manc) stirred up Manchester second city claim after the commonwealth games and the results of a manchester based poll on who thinks Manc to be the second city, it was a close run thing but i wonder what the results would be on a national scale... mmm... sorry but if Manchester is contending for second place then maybe Birmingham should consider itself 1st city after London which is the Capital?

and as regards ground roots culture, and sports i would honestly say from experience that both cities are equally as rich in this area but seeing as Birmingham has over twice the population as Manchester then it surely will have more of a claim? otherwise we could start argueing that people are less cultured depending on their location in the British Isles... World... and believe me that is a very dangerous argument to start. Unfortunately one claim to a second (after london) title that Birmingham owns is violent crime, Manchester is welcome to reclaim this a.s.a.p. :) Nick Boulevard 22:07, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)


[[And another vote here for Manchester I'm afraid!]]

The issue about population is clearly a valid one and on that score the official boundaries of the city of Birmingham certainly do beat those for the city boundary of Manchester, but everyone recognises Birmingham is intrisically linked to the Black Country just as Salford is linked to Manchester. Equally "Sandwell" is a bit of an administrators concept - most of the people who live there say would tell people they are from "Birmingham" or the "West Midlands". Its the same for people from "Trafford" or "Tameside". None of these wider suburbs of our great cities would exisit in and of themselves (well at least not in the state they are now). They have evolved with the rest of the urban area, alongside the focal points of Birmingham or Manchester.

Lets look at those wider areas for a minute. Birmingham was part of a fairly sensible administrative area called "The West Midlands" - a metropolitan or "city region" concept widely understood in Europe and North America. Likewise our north west friends were bundelled into "Greater Manchester". They worked fine and made sense to people. They helped in provision of county wide fire and transport provision. They did a lot of good. But both of these and the four other Met counties (West Yorks, South Yorks, Tyne & Wear and Merseyside) were only abolished by the Tories because they all voted Labour and became an embarassing thorn in Thatchers side.

Few people now quote the population of London as that of the "City of London" - "Greater London" is understood as a natural boundry. These wider urban concepts amek a lot of sense to people who live there and help geographers, marketing and advertising people to plan their sales better. It seems foolish to throw away these concepts just because they were abolished on a political whim.

Techincally, the population of "Greater Manchester" was slightly higher than that of the "West Midlands" for a while although the latest census shows that situation has now swapped over. WM 2,555,000 GM 2,482,000

So thats the population argument.

Other ways to measure "second city status" are listed on my edit of this page (culture, phone numbers or post codes, sports sucessess etc) even you would have to admit on most of those Manchester is really a bit stronger than Birmingham, at the moment at least!

Even Brum's latest tall building is about to be overtaken by Manchesters Beetham Tower, but all that said maybe we should just be happy that the competition thrives and proves theres more to the UK than London!!!

Best wishes to the Brummies and the Mancs!

-)

Mark

Revert war

I really am not particularly interested in getting into an extended revert war over the Birmingham/Manchester issue, and I am worried that this is starting to degenerate into one. G-Man, can you explain exactly what your problem is with the text of the article as it stands? If you could do so without rehashing points from the debate above (in which consensus on this text was originally achieved between various participants) that would be helpful. --Ngb 19:16, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I dont see any consensus here, Would you like to explain what was wrong with User:Gem's version. I am not speaking on Gem's behalf, but his/her version seems far clearer and far more sensibly worded than the one it replaced. I see nothing non NPOV or innacurate in Gem's version, although I reworded it slightly, so would you like to explain what you think is wrong with it. G-Man 19:34, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I see a strong drive towards consensus is above, in the sections 'City of London 'silliness, 'Inclusion of English Poll' and 'Who exactly thinks Manchester is the second city'.
I explained what I felt was wrong with Gem's version in the edit summary when I reverted it -- 'Birmingham is usually credited with the title of second city' is not accurate. As we have already explored in the debate above, sources are equivocal about which of Birmingham or Manchester is the second city, and as there is no formal criterion for how the status of a city is to be measured we are unable to establish this in any other way. So the only way not to be POV is to state that the situation is unclear, which is what the text I am defending does.
--Ngb 19:51, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Which is why I changed 'usually' to 'commonly' which it is, nobody can deny that Birmingham is commonly credited with the title of second city. Also Gem's version pointed out far more clearly that Birmingham is the second city in terms of size, which is undisputable fact. It also seems to give a fair assesment of the Manchester situation.

If Gem returns perhaps he or she can give a better explanation of there changes, perhaps s/he didn't realise the subject was controversial. G-Man 20:02, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any difference between 'usually' and 'commonly' here: both weight the article towards Birmingham, and we have not established grounds for doing this. As to clarity, do you really think that 'Birmingham is larger by many measures, including the population within the formal city boundary' is unclear? --Ngb 20:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

In reply to your first question, I dont see that it does. In reply to your second question, no but the other version was even clearer.

Also on your other points, I think most people would take 'Second City' as meaning second largest city, which is certainly what the other countries seem to use as criteria, and Gem's version pointed out that Birmingham was second city in terms of size clearly. G-Man 20:19, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Are you seriously suggesting that this text:

 In the United Kingdom, Birmingham is the second largest city in terms 
 of population, and is commonly credited with the title of second city.
 However, in terms of public perception Manchester is sometimes credited 
 with this title.

is as neutral as this one:

In the United Kingdom, Birmingham and Manchester generally contend 
for the title of second city. Birmingham is larger by many measures, 
including the population within the formal city boundary, but there 
are disputes about what parts of the surrounding conurbations should 
be included. It is similarly unclear which has the greater cultural 
importance.

As to the size issue, as I have previously pointed out the article itself makes it clear that size is not the only criterion: it seems silly for us to unequivocally assert, as your text does, that Birmingham is 'commonly' thought of as the second city of the UK based on its population, when this is firstly an oversimplification rejected earlier in the same article, and secondly is obviously not the criterion used by people in the UK who consider Manchester to be the second city. --Ngb 17:46, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have to say that ALL of the British media including Manchester have considered Birmingham as the UK'S second city for decades, in culture it matches Manchester easily (take a look at Culture section Birmingham) that is not detracting from what Manchester is or will be but let us be fair, the oldest, foremost media company in the UK continue to regarded Brum as second city see :) and also
this isn't a snub to Manchester but in reallity a (selective as i suspect) poll that was conducted of 1000 people immediately after the Manchester Commonwealth games is absoloutely laughable as a source to consider Manchester as the country's second city i could flippin do better than that myself, Manchester City boundaries are clear as are Birminghams, Greater Manchester is a name just like West Midlands, those areas are not classed as city's, i think we all know that.
Sky sports, talk sports, local radio all refer to Birmingham as the second city the BBC radio stations including Radio 2, Radio 1 and Radio 5 all refer regularly to Birmingham as the second city and they even host live shows from there which included a radio 1 live week,
i have never heard anyone refer to a second city football derby and refer to Manchester, actually i just typed in second city Birmingham and look what i found:
FOXSports.com - SOCCER - Birmingham City defeats Aston Villa to ...Birmingham City defeats Aston Villa to win second city derby. Story Tools: Print, Email. Stephen Wade / Associated Press Posted: 12 days ago, ... (the link was dead unfortunately)
even thistle hotels are in on this here
and the independant, didn't the paper win something last year?Independent
personally i could argue about culture, sports and so on for an eternity but where there is no argument is which is a greater city in terms of size, population and economic power... Birmingham is a greater city than Manchester in these terms and it is these hard facts that we can measure fairly and hence this is why people across the world refer to Birmingham as the UK's second city.
Finally i will just add this which i found from a reliable source online.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Birmingham is a major UK and international centre for business, commerce and industry. The city is home to numerous UK, merchant and overseas banks, over 500 law firms and is Europe's second largest insurance market. The UK's top accountancy and management consultancy firms have their largest offices outside London here. Birmingham has developed its reputation as 'Europe's Meeting Place', attracting over 40% of the UK's total conference trade, and over 25 million visitors a year. The G8 summit of major economic powers was held here in 1998, putting the city on the world stage.
Birmingham is by far the UK's largest manufacturing and engineering centre, employing over 100,000 people and contributing billions to the national economy. Major manufacturing areas include electrical and mechanical engineering, telecommunications, motor vehicle manufacture and hi-tech research. In the public sector, Birmingham is home to three universities; major medical centres of excellence and employs thousands of people in national and local government.
Nick Boulevard 23:32, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
All of this, while interesting, is not really relevant. I'm sure Manchester advocates can quote as many sources (many of them, no doubt, as biased as the ones you mention!) that claim Manchester to be the UK's second city. The point is that there is no clear sense in the UK of which the 'second city' is: you will find arguments and sources for both. So the article should say exactly what it says now: (1) Birmingham is larger in terms of population, but (2) the issue is nevertheless unclear. --Ngb 23:53, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ngb, the point i am trying to make is that Birmingham has been considered the second city of Britain since roughly the second world war and maybe even earlier, this is due to Birmingham being a much greater city in area, population and economy... hard facts, undeniable and these are facts which had lead to the media, press and public to perceive Birmingham as second only to London.

The truth is that the ONLY places that you will read about Manchester being considered as Britains second city are independent Manchester based sources, such as Manchester websites or universities.. hard fact! (oh sorry and a manchester based poll of 1000 people immediateley after the Commonwealth games)

One of the MANY sources that site Birmingham as being classed as Britains second city is the most respected Broadcasting services in the world, the BBC, the other is the INDEPENDANT newspaper which was awarded newspaper of the year award 2004 in the UK.

Now these are not biased opinions unless you can say that i am biased towards the truth? Birmingham has a hard enough time as it is trying to be recognised on a national scale due to a much inferior media presence in the city, at first when i read this dispute i didn't care much but when i actually thought about the implications of a place like Wikipedia advertising Manchester as possibly being classed as the UK's second city rather than Birmingham i took a second look, i would urge you Ngb to correct the article, i have no quarm with Manchester being classed as capital of the North or North West but Birmingham is Britains second city due to the facts i have stated, if you believe Manchester to be second city (excluding culture, sport etc which can be argued for ever and a day) then please state your reasons here. Thanks. Nick Boulevard 15:21, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am not interested in putting forward Manchester as the second city -- I am interested in making this article tread a neutral line between Manchester and Birmingham. I am not a resident of either city and I have no partisan agenda. (Based on my own circumstances, I should be pushing the case of Newcastle-upon-Tyne!)
This is not a question of advertising! It is a question of Wikipedia reporting as accurately as possible, and of maintaining NPOV. The fact is, as I have now said time and time again (and am getting somewhat fed up with reiterating!) that there is clearly a sizeable amount of people in the UK and internationally who see Manchester as the UK's second city, and it would therefore be irresponsible for us not to reflect this. To say that 'Birmingham is usually credited with the title of second city' when there are many sources that contradict this is not NPOV.
We could argue about this for ever -- even your 'hard facts' of population, economy, etc. become less than useful when you take into account a possible dispute over which parts of the conurbations to include. So the sensible step, on all levels, is to follow the neutral line that the text as it currently stands is taking. --Ngb 17:42, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Actually by any definition of conurbation or urban area Birmingham comes out larger, even if Coventry etc is removed from the definition, Birmingham still comes out larger, see Largest urban areas of Western Europe, there is quite simply no dispute over the fact that Birmingham is the second largest city in terms of city and conurbation size. G-Man 20:52, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The Largest urban areas of Western Europe list notes specifically that it refers solely to contiguous urban areas, not metropolitan areas. --Ngb 22:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

mmm... i too am becoming a little fed up with this Ngb,

1. When i refer to population, economy and area of city i refer to Birmingham (not West Midlands) compared to Manchester (not Greater Manchester) there is NO "dispute over which parts of the conurbations to include".

2. You said: "there is clearly a sizeable amount of people in the UK and internationally who see Manchester as the UK's second city, and it would therefore be irresponsible for us not to reflect this."

...Ok please show me the evidence of these people other than Mancunians. Please do not include a poll of 1000 people by a Manchester biased company, bearing in mind i have already provided two extremely influential and trustworthy sources that concede Birmingham to be the second city in the UK.

3. Finally you stated: "To say that 'Birmingham is usually credited with the title of second city' when there are many sources that contradict this is not NPOV." please provide these sources, and again they need to be reliable and non biased.

Thanks Nick Boulevard 20:27, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)As

OK. I'll deal with your points using the same numbering.
1. Yes, so do I -- which is why the text I am defending states clearly that 'Birmingham is larger by many measures, including the population within the formal city boundary'. You are incorrect in stating that there is no dispute over which parts of the conurbations to include, though -- simply reading over this talk page and looking at the history of the article proves otherwise! Some people have suggested that there is a difference between a generic conurbation and a metropolitan county; some have noted that the formal city boundaries do not necessarily represent the most useful filtering criterion.
2. Firstly I would certainly question your description of the BBC's Birmingham unit as an unbiased source on the claims of Birmingham to be the second city! It seems as likely to be biased as the Manchester university-based sources you have previously, and sensibly, rejected. Secondly, simply Googling for '"second city" manchester' turns up a large number of results, and from a quick survey a reasonable proportion appear to be not from Manchester-based organisations.
I think you mean secondly, and with regards to the BBC it is not just the Brum "unit" that refer to Brum as second city, BBC national radio still refer to Brum as the UK's second city, I have provided the sources on this page. All press regard Brum as second city to London, second in size and the rest follows, Manchester being suggested as second city is hype by Mancunians, let us see the nation wide poll that says Manchester is regarded as second city, more to the point let us see the people that answered yes to Manchester being second city... where were they from?
3. See (2).
The way I see it, we have two alternatives that will maintain NPOV. We can have an article that lists all the points for Birmingham and then lists all the points for Manchester; or we can have an article that explains, as the Mattley/Khendon text I am supporting does, that the issue is contentious with the minimum of complicated, confusing detail. I strongly favour the second alternative because it is much clearer and more concise.
--Ngb 22:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Earlier NGB wrote:

to the size issue, as I have previously pointed out the article itself makes it clear that size is not the only criterion: it seems silly for us to unequivocally assert, as your text does, that Birmingham is 'commonly' thought of as the second city of the UK based on its population, when this is firstly an oversimplification rejected earlier in the same article, and secondly is obviously not the criterion used by people in the UK who consider Manchester to be the second city. --Ngb 17:46, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I disagree, this may be down to public ignorance, how many people know population statistics off the top of their heads?, also people may be getting Manchester confused with Greater Manchester. G-Man 20:36, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Why people think this is not really for us to speculate. It seems that they do, and so we have to report that. --Ngb 22:43, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As it stands I dont believe the article correctly reflects reality. I simply dont buy the idea that Manchester is thought of as second city anywhere near as commonly as Birmingham. As it stands the article gives wildly undue prominence to Manchester's claim, it quite frankly does not deserve on the basis of a single opinion poll. G-Man 20:59, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

My worry, to be honest, is that making the article deal with the issue in any more detail than it currently does is only going to provoke continued infighting over the issue between Birmingham advocates and Manchester advocates. --Ngb 22:50, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you totally about preventing in-fighting between Brum and Manchester members however there shouldn't be one as it is quite clear, put simply... Manchester has NOT been regarded as second city by any source that i have ever come across that is not Manchester biased. I did quite a bit of searching for second city claims Ngb and i provided the most reliable, UN-BIASED sorces in my argument with a link to them, please show me the sites you found that were as unbiased and reliable as The Independent and the BBC? i couldn't find any?

I let Wikipedia ask the questions and i shal answer from this very article, it reads:

Criteria for second city status include population size, - Even if you included many of the towns on the outskirts of Manchester it's population would clearly still be smaller than Birmingham alone, Birmingham city doesn't need to include add-on's like West Bromwich, Walsall, Sandwell, Smethwick, Halesowen etc, which seem to sprawl into the city or vise versa. Birmingham is over twice the population of Manchester, fact.

economic or commercial importance, - Birmingham City is without doubt a larger economy than Manchester City, with over 500 law firms and is Europe's second largest insurance market. Attracting over 40% of the UK's total conference trade. Birmingham is by far the UK's largest manufacturing and engineering centre, employing over 100,000 people and contributing billions to the national economy with two of the largest car plants in Britain, MG Rover and Jaguar, excluding Land Rover in Solihull. (Not forgetting the hundreds of well established Birmingham businesses which use 'second city' in their title')

political importance or some cultural sense. - From my personal experience having lived in both cities this is where both Manchester and Birmingham seem to be on a level playing field, but then so could we argue that dozens of other UK cities like Bristol, Glasgow, Newcastle, Sheffield etc have equal importance so in the UK we cannot really use this to decide.

Since it is often difficult to draw a precise boundary where cities end, deciding which city is second in a country is not always straightforward. If the cultural definition is used, then the choice of second city is highly subjective and a matter of opinion rather than fact. - Well to my mind it is clear where Birmingham and Manchester boundaries end, i know people from Salford who get seriously angry at people saying they are from Manchester, people from Solihull do the same with Brum but that's ok because although Solihull sprawls into Birmingham it might culturally be regarded as part of the city and have a Birmingham post code but it isn't classed as so. And discouting the cultural definition this brings us back to which city is bigger by population and economic importance. Birmingham.

What if i did a poll of 1000 Brummies and asked them who they thought the best football team in the world was, i can asure you that Villa or Blues would come out on top but i can also asure you that it's not true. Nick Boulevard 18:30, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)


I haven't got time at the moment to fight about this again, but this sentence - "Birmingham is the second largest city in the UK by population and size of the economy within the formal city boundary." - is just plain wrong. By "formal city boundary", it is the largest city. Saying that would be silly and misleading, but we need to at least rephrase it to avoid being factually incorrect. --Khendon 07:07, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Mmm, that's actually a good point. How about this rephrasing? --Ngb 12:20, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I actually agree with the rephrasing but one question... how exactly is Manchester challenging for the title of second city? Surely until (if) this (ever) happens WHAT is the point in including it in the article, Birmingham could one one day be the Capital of England if the South East ever dissapears under two feet of water but to add that on the London page would be extremely premature, wikipeia is not about 'what if' but 'what is', today, now... and right now Manchester is not regarded as second city for the reasons i have already taken the time to write. The problem here is that we are treading a dangerous line because all it takes is for one person from somewhere like Leeds which is larger than Manchester in actual City population etc to decide that Leeds is chalenging Brum to second city title and the page will become a constant edit war. I say keep it simple, all is fine but remove Manchester as being regarded as chalenging for second city because it sounds like sour grapes and may end up enticing more reverts? Nick Boulevard 00:27, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Simply the number of sources both online and offline that have Manchester as the second city: admittedly many of these are Manchester-based, but not all of them by any means. I cannot find a single remotely reputable source claiming Leeds to be the second city of the UK, which is why I don't think the article should mention Leeds. But there are plenty that say Manchester is, which is why the article should mention Manchester. --Ngb 10:30, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree that many sites now seem to claim Manchester as 2nd city in some way but the ONLY sites i have seen this on are self proclaimed Manchester ones, please show me an independent site that places Manchester as the second city of England, i found none! BBC and the Indepentant newspaper have brum as second city and that was from just a few searches, unbiased.

Besides, the article already states that it is imposible to decide which uk city is more or less cultural than another which brings us to the description of what constitutes a second city at the top of the article, Birmingham city is larger in popultaion and economy than Manchester, i agree that this may one day change if boundaries are added to Manchester city but it would need to add about half a million in population which could take some time, i still think it is missleading, confusing and pointless to say that Manchester is increasingly chasing the title, there are plenty of people who think Manchester a better city and its nothing to do with a second city title, Wikipedia isn't a Manchester website nor is it a Brum advertisment which is why the article should be based on what is fact! Nick Boulevard 17:41, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)