Liverpool: regeneration generation

Will the new Liverpool once again rival other great English cities?

Positive news coming out of Liverpool right now seems unabated. First the European City of Culture accolade, and the revitalisation of swathes of the city centre, new shopping and business developments, a rejuvenated Waterfront with World Heritage status. There's the fantastic newly opened Museum of Liverpool. And the hugely successful 2011 Mathew Street Festival.

Recently, The Economist wrote on Liverpool's burgeoning links with China in "Here comes the Yuan": attracting sizeable investment capital off the back of Liverpool's twinning relationship with rapidly expanding Shanghai. "Liverpool Vision (the council’s inward investment arm) has set up a dedicated office in Shanghai. The Peel Group, an infrastructure and real-estate outfit, hosted a pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo last year. It is courting Chinese sovereign-wealth funds to develop Liverpool’s derelict northern dockyards. The plans include a 60-storey “Shanghai tower,” named to reinforce Liverpool’s links to that city.  The Peel Group has already secured Chinese cash for a development in Birkenhead, across the Mersey: these days, says Lindsey Ashworth, the company’s development director, China is a much more promising source of funds than Britain."

Now, the BBC reports on an upgrade to the city's rail stations, "Liverpool's five underground stations are to get a £40m overhaul in the next few years, it has been announced. Half the money will be used to make improvements to Central Station, which is the busiest in the city."

Where will this all end? Will Liverpool's former glory days return? 

They say of the two mythical Liver Birds, designed by Carl Bernard Bartels, which stand atop either tower of the Royal Liver Building, that the female gazes out to sea to watch for returning sailors, the male inland to see if the pubs are open. Perhaps the male will now look back to discover what dramatic improvements are taking shape, as there may be other far more novel things to do before he downs that pint.

Check out all commentaries in the Index here.