Bilbao City Report

Europe is a continent of cities with a remarkable history of cultural inspiration, wealth creation, social andpolitical dynamism. But in the late-20th century, many former industrial cities entered a period of steep decline,losing most of their manufacturing jobs and many of their economic functions. Populations declined andwealthier suburbs outstripped the declining inner cities that had housed the “engines of the world” and nowhoused some of the greatest concentrations of poverty. The US experienced even more extreme decline.The idea of Weak Market Cities was born at the second UK Government conference on an UrbanRenaissance, hosted by Manchester in 2002. European and American city leaders debated the changingfortunes and prospects of former industrial cities. The pressures of growth and sprawl were counterbalancedwith inner urban depopulation and decay; the new skills needed for the new “knowledge” and “service”economy were contrasted with high levels of worklessness and poor schools. Cities now house the majorityand fastest growing share of the world’s expanding population, and they are on a treadmill of physical pressure,social disorder, and economic insecurity.[...]