I grew up in 1960s and 70s Birmingham: The city I knew is gone - here's how it has shaped my life

To my parents’ generation such change was seen as sweeping away the Victorian Birmingham they’d grown up which had developed rapidly in response to the exigencies of rapid industrialisation. I have vague memories of the many black buildings stained by pollution. 

Sadly, many magnificent buildings were lost such. These include the old new Street and Snow Hill stations. For those with a bit of time to engage in sentimentality, there are some wonderful websites showing the transformation of Birmingham which has always happily complied with the motto of ‘Progress’. What you’ll discover is that until the mid-60s, New Street Station had a road going through its middle, a relic of the fact that it consisted of two separate privately-owned stations going north and south connected by a footbridge. 

Read more: Our city is a great place to live and work, despite what outsiders say

Regardless of the trauma felt by some, Birmingham of my childhood felt exciting.

New, and it must be said, futuristic buildings changed the city’s skyline. Many, of course, were concrete which made the city more brutal. Most particularly, the road system – seen as an essential part of development – forced human being into underpass systems that were to become resented. Visitors to Birmingham all too frequently criticised the place for its willingness to become what some suggested as looking like the set of Stanley Kubrick’s notorious film A Clockwork Orange.

Something had to change which, of course, Birmingham has embraced in the last two hundred years. Notably, a poet, John Hobbs, who’d grown up in Birmingham in the late eighteenth century, and had spent some time away, wrote a folk song ‘I Can’t Find Brummagem’ plaintively describing how much had altered which he first performed in 1828 at the Theatre Royal on New Street which stood pretty much at the bottom end of Bennetts Hill. 

Birmingham, which only achieved city status in 1889 by being granted by Queen Victoria, achieved rapid transformation precisely due to the fact that it welcomed newcomers. It was a place where, with ingenuity and hard work, fortunes could be made.

Though predominantly from within the British Isles during the industrial revolution until the second world war, newcomers from Commonwealth counties such as the Caribbean and Asian sub-continent, came to work in the many factories, health service as well as many other sectors.

Immigration means the city currently has the youngest age profile in Europe and, as a consequence, feels vibrant and youthful. 

Fast forwarding to Birmingham in 2024 we have a city that, due to the almost complete disappearance of factories – especially in the inner city – is no longer dirty.

Phenomenal redevelopment has, not for the first time, and certainly not the last, means the city exhibits far more glass in the modern offices and ubiquitous apartment. Whether they’re as aesthetically pleasing as the gothic styling of the buildings lost in the 1950s, 60s and 70s is a moot question. 

Nevertheless, Birmingham’s now a place more likely to be remembered fondly by visitors who, until the redevelopment of New Street (now Grand Central) and the Bull Ring might have been forgiven for believing they’d been transported to a dystopian planet.

Gas Street Basin, a place to be avoided when I was growing up, is now a joyful experience.    

It’s now far easier for ‘Brummies’ to proudly claim the city’s wonderfully eclectic culture based on a ‘melting pot’ of citizens from almost every part of the world.

The huge array of eateries attests to this. Importantly, and though the city still gets more than its fair share of bad publicity, its theatres and museums provide ample proof that Birmingham has always been able to hold its own in producing writers, actors, entertainers and all others whose contributions make the world an infinitely better place.

Innovators whose ideas will transform the future are growing up in Birmingham and who’ll achieve incredible things.

Let’s not forget, Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood, and Joseph Priestley, members of the Lunar Society in Birmingham in 1760s, were responsible for creating the basis of scientific theory allowing the epoch of industrialisation. 

Dr Steven McCabe

Steve McCabeSteve is Professor and Pro Vice Chancellor, DoctorateHub.

Previously, having worked for Birmingham City Council, he spent the last 35 years as an academic at Birmingham City University teaching and researching economics, management and business. Additionally, he has written extensively for edited texts examining economics and politics.

He regularly writes and comments regularly in the national and international media on politics and the economy and has published texts on quality management, benchmarking, ‘Brexit’ and its economic and social impact, the green economy and manufacturing, house prices and India’s progress since independence. Steve’s latest book on Net Zero will be published next February by Emerald. 

Get the latest headlines delivered straight to your inbox with BirminghamWorld’s free newsletter