After visiting Hull last weekend and seeing the legacy of its UK City of Culture status, it got me thinking about other cities that had been also won the title or similar. Liverpool was awarded the European Capital of Culture in 2008 - this was a European Union initiative so once the UK left the EU after Brexit we were unable to hold the title again.

I live in the North-west and go to Liverpool once or twice a year and, like Hull, I am always impressed on how well it celebrates its maritime heritage, and how much culture there is to take in. So it felt like another great case study for Changing Places - and therefore worth of a blog!

So let's start off with a bit of Liverpool's geography...

Liverpool is a major port city in Merseyside, North West England, on the east bank of the River Mersey, close to where it enters the Irish Sea.

Its location gave it a historic role as Britain's great Atlantic-facing port, oriented towards trade with the Americas, Ireland and the West Indies (in contrast to Hull's North Sea/European orientation). This west-coast position later became a disadvantage as UK trade patterns shifted.

Around 500,000 people live in the city itself, with over 2 million in the wider Liverpool City Region. Liverpool is the 8th largest city in the UK, in terms of population.

The Albert Dock underwent a huge transformation in the 1980s, making Liverpool a much more desirable city to visit (pictured below).

Context - industrial base and deindustrialisation

Liverpool's wealth was built on its docks and maritime trade including cotton, sugar and general cargo trading with the Americas. Unfortunately the city also played a central role in the transatlantic slave trade in the 18th century.

The population grew rapidly during the Industrial Revolution and peaked around 800,000 in the 1930s. However, from between the 1950s and 1980s Liverpool underwent a dramatic and sustained decline - there were several reasons for this...

• Containerisation made older, shallow-water docks obsolete
• The loss of Empire and changing trade patterns reduced the value of Atlantic trade
• Entry to the European Economic Community (EEC - now the EU) in 1973 accelerated a shift of UK trade towards continental Europe - disadvantaging a west-coast port oriented to America

Deindustrialisation led to catastrophic depopulation - the population roughly halved, from about 800,000 to 400,000, one of the most severe cases of urban decline in Western Europe.

By the 1980s, Liverpool had the highest levels of poverty and deprivation of any British city. The derelict docks became a visible symbol of the city's collapse, particularly with the Albert Dock standing empty and threatened with demolition. The 1981 Toxteth riots highlighted deep social tension linked to unemployment, poor housing and racial discrimination.

Liverpool's political image in the 1980s, as a city with a 'militant' council, that clashes with the Thatcher government, reinforced an external meaning and representation of the city as troubled, mismanaged and in permanent decline. In the 2000s the bid for European Capital of Culture had to actively work against this reputation.

Why did Liverpool become the European Capital of City (2008)?

Liverpool won the title for 2008, sharing the year with Stavanger (Norway). It built the bid around its genuine cultural depth...

Music scene - Liverpool has been a major centre of British popular music since the 1960s, producing artists across Merseybeat, post-punk, new wave, synth-pop, Britpop, and modern indie rock. It's often referred to as the 'World Capital City of Pop' because of the sheer number of successful acts to emerge from the city. Obviously The Beatles take the top spot, but notable other bands include Echo and the Bunnymen, OMD, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The La's, Dead or Alive, and many others.

Literature and poetry - Famous writers from Liverpool include Beryl Bainbridge (considered one of Britain's greatest post-war novelists) and children's author Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Liverpudlian writers span over a century of literature and have had a significant influence on British culture. Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri in particular became known simply as 'The Liverpool Poets', and their anthology 'The Mersey Sound' is one of the best-selling poetry collections ever published in the UK.

Visual arts and theatre - Liverpool has had a huge influence on both the visual arts and theatre. George Stubbs, one of Britain's greatest painters, famous for his paintings of horses was born in the city, along with several other notable artists. Liverpool also developed a distinctive art scene in the 20th century through the Liverpool College of Art, Liverpool School of Art and Design, and the Bluecoat Arts Centre. The city is also home to the Walker Art Gallery (often called 'the National Gallery of the North') and Tate Liverpool (one of the UK's major modern art museums). Liverpool is also the birthplace of some of Britain's most influential playwrights and screenwriters, including Willy Russell, Alan Bleasdale and Jimmy McGovern, and some of the countries best loved actors, including David Morrissey, Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham.

The bid fitted the wider EU aim of using culture as a tool for regeneration in a city that, despite economic collapse, retained enormous cultural capital - a strong case that stigma and heritage could be turned into a redevelopment asset.

Liverpool's docklands and city-centre architecture had already been awarded UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 2004, four years before becoming the European Capital of Culture - giving the bid a strong existing heritage asset to build the year's programme around.

Liverpool's waterfront is one of the world's great historic docklands (pictured below) - it is one of the finest surviving examples of a Victorian maritime port, with a large number of historic buildings and museums, including...

• Royal Albert Dock - former warehouse complex now home to museums, galleries and restaurants
• The Three Graces - Royal Liver Building, Cunard Building and Port of Liverpool Building (pictured below) - together they symbolise Liverpool's role as one of the world's greatest ports during the age of the British Empire
• Museums - Museum of Liverpool (covers social history), Mersey Maritime Museum and International Slavery Museum
• Beatles statue - bronze sculpture at Pier Head, celebrating Liverpool's most famous musical export (pictured below)

How European Capital of Culture status changed Liverpool

• Events put on as part of the celebration during 2008 attracted an estimated 9.7-10+ million additional visits/attendances (accounts vary by measurement method), representing around 35% of all visits to the city that year.
• Direct economic impact figures range from roughly £750m-£800m in 2008 alone - the highest recorded economic impact of any European Capital of Culture to that date - this is much higher than the direct economic impact felt in Hull (2017) and Coventry (2021) from their UK City of Culture status.
• 291 international delegations visited the city during the year, and 65% of UK residents were aware Liverpool held the title - this resulted in a massive re-shaping of the city's external representation on a national scale.
• Investment flowed into new and refurbished cultural venues and public realm, and the year helped catalyse the Liverpool ONE shopping and leisure development (delivered by the Duke of Westminster's Grosvenor Group at a cost of over £920m and pictured below) - a symbol of 'serious money' returning to the city centre after decades of disinvestment.
• 18 new artistic commissions were specially created as part of the Liverpool Culture Company’s 'Creative Communities' program. These works were designed to engage local neighbourhoods across the city. The 'Eighteen for 18' branding was later used for the 10th-anniversary programme in 2018.

Long-term legacy

Positive, lasting outcomes...

• Liverpool has sustained a cultural-tourism-led growth model in the years since - repeat mega-events such as the Giants spectacular in 2018, explicitly branded 'Liverpool's Dream' to mark the 10th anniversary of the European Capital of Culture, and the annual River of Light festival (pictured below), show the city continuing to invest in event-led regeneration.
• Research studies 'Impacts 08 programme (2005-10) and 'Impacts 18 - 10 years on' found that 47% of UK residents and 70% of Liverpool residents agreed European Capital of Culture status had made Liverpool a more desirable place to live - a significant shift in national perception.
• 42% of residents said the European Capital of Culture introduced them and their families to new cultural activities, with 44% saying they retained an active interest in culture as a direct result - this is evidence of a genuine, lasting shift in local cultural participation, not just a one-off spike.
• The city continues to brand itself around culture and has remained a 'must-visit' UK city in subsequent tourism rankings.

Criticisms and limits...

• Research found the benefits were not evenly distributed - residents in disadvantaged communities reported lower 'cultural provision legacy', partly due to cultural distance and physical distance - a clear example of how a single mega-event can widen rather than close inequality within a place.
• Academic critique (writing on the 10th anniversary in 2018) argued the city's European Capital of Culture 'legacy narrative' remained narrowly economic, and depends on a selective heritage narrative that celebrates certain histories (maritime grandeur, music) while giving less prominence to others (the city's role in the slave trade, its poverty).
• The city's UNESCO World Heritage status was controversially stripped by UNESCO in 2021, specifically because new waterfront developments (e.g. Liverpool FC's new stadium) were judged to have caused 'irreversible loss' to the site's authenticity - a ironic tension between culture-led regeneration and heritage preservation, particularly as many of the regeneration schemes happened because of the confidence and investment generated by the European Capital of Culture!