THEME 3 - Cities and Urbanisation in the UK

• Urban Sprawl

How did Britain become an urban nation from it's rural roots? The industrial revolution has seen our cities swell beyond all recognition.

• New Manchester

In one human lifetime Britain's industrial landscape has changed beyond recognition. Manchester has reinvented itself. Factories have been replaced by leisure and culture, and the biggest and tallest statement of the new aspirations is Beetham Tower.



•  The changing face of London

Aerial shots and archive footage are used to introduce London Docklands and to outline its long history. During the late 1930s, London Docks was the busiest port in the world but, by the late 1970s, the docks had become obsolete and the area had become a derelict wasteland. Archive footage is also used to show how the docks were transformed during the 1980s and 1990s by the London Docklands Development Corporation into a successful centre for trade.