Manchester, So Much To Answer For - How a boom ended Manchester's bust.

A returnee's view of Manc - myself, I get vaguely the same feeling when I pop back, the feeling that the reconstruction after the IRA bomb hasn't really worked and that the little shmatty shops that filled the corn exchange (indeed, the location of the Arndale before the Post-war planners blitzed it) were what held the Manchester spirit; the scrubby endless Stockport market that runs over cobbles streets and iron bridges and through old market halls, that always knew more of what Manchester was about than the frankly souless city-centre. Albert Square, Urbis, and the new Marks 'n Sparks - they all symbolise the absolute shittiness of the central town planners, who should have just left the place to develop the way New York did.