Coventry is city with an important economic history. This may sound surprising, that a medium sized city in the Midlands of England has such a rich and varied past, socially and economically. Yet it remains true that throughout the city’s existence it has been at the centre of, or subjected to, a slew of economic events that have served to repeatedly and fundamentally alter its character and structure. The city’s fortunes have fallen and risen so frequently in the last hundred years or so that the symbol of the city, a phoenix, has become indelibly linked with its identity. While Coventry’s residents take pride in this symbol of recovery, it’s sometimes easy to forget that before rebirth must come fire. The symbolism can also be misleading, since what has emerged from the ashes of Coventry’s economic past bears little resemblance to what came before. For example, as will be discussed in the pages that follow, industrialisation at the turn of the twentieth century has given away to a service-based local economy, heavily embedded in regional, national and global networks of economic and commercial activity. This shift was punctuated by two world wars, during which Coventry acted as a major centre of munitions production and, latterly, aero and vehicular production. For its efforts the city suffered in both post-war periods, from depression after the first conflict, to significant structural damage after World War Two. Rebuilding after the war wrought enormous changes to the physical landscape of the city, as it transformed from a medieval city in shape to a modern urban centre, with new spaces created for retail, industry and a road network for an emerging mass transport revolution, the passenger car.
Arguably, however, it would be another international force that would bring even greater changes and impact the city, namely globalisation. During the nineteenth century an enormous decline in transport costs across sea lanes allied to declining tariffs and the opening-up of the Americas and the Indian subcontinent encouraged British and European exporters to pursue greater trade and increase opportunities for the exchange of goods and services. Innovations in transportation technologies and improved efficiency of institutional structures further drove this process (Williamson 2008). However, it was by the beginning of the next century where globally integrated commodity and factor markets were truly in evidence, and as O’Rourke and Williamson note, by 1914 there was no area of the globe influenced or untouched by foreign markets, by foreign capital or traded expert skills (1999). Those who lost out, such as farmers who saw a sharp fall in food prices and domestic firms suffering from international competition voiced their opposition and set the stage for what would become the defining economic concern of the last century, but also, arguably, the most potent economic force for positive change and development. Two world wars and an intervening period of protectionism saw the rollback of many of the gains made by closer, integrated markets, but the post second-world war years saw a return to globalisation with a new vigour, along with successive waves of growth and decline.
For the city of Coventry, the opening up of post-war markets provided some of the richest and most successful years of its history, with specialised workers receiving significant rewards as the demand for their products took off. What followed though was a city which would become better known for its decline in the face of rival producers than for the quality of its work. Starting from the 1960s onwards the main industrial sector, the automotive industry in Coventry, would be subject to increasing competition from international rivals, as well as waves of Foreign Direct Investment that would begin to absorb or outperform domestic firms. In a comparatively short span of time Coventry’s most important economic activity would be reduced to a negligible presence. To fill the vacuum created by deindustrialisation the city authorities sought, with the support of national government, to encourage replacement activities. The result of these efforts saw an increase in tertiary activities in the local economy. These were not support services to industrial actors, rather they were often low skill and low wage employment opportunities meeting the needs of the population, such as retail and cleaning.
As the economic base of the city changed so too did occupations, as industrial workers gave way, increasingly, to professional jobs but also elementary activities and a more polarised labour market. Arguably what has emerged in the decades since the collapse of the motor industry and driven by globalising processes are two visible tiers of growth in the city’s workforce; skilled, mobile professionals locating often within travel-to-work corridors at the city’s edge, and less qualified workers based around the commercial centre of the city and performing a range of jobs in comparatively low-paid occupations. In an attempt to reverse this trend city officials and national policymakers have attempted to follow a triple helix model of innovation, promoting educational opportunities within Coventry’s two main higher education institutions (Coventry University and the University of Warwick ) and intersecting these efforts with the development of Science Parks and Enterprise Parks. Encouraging close relations between industry, academia and government has brought considerable success to Coventry, but has not been without challenges, not least related to the mobility of new graduates. In an era when globalisation encourages the movement of capital and labour, it has proven difficult to anchor this talent pool in the city, with low rates of graduate retention . Whereas is the past Coventry attracted migration through the offer of high pay and the potential of upskilling on site, there is now considerably more churn associated with attending education in the city (but often not remaining afterwards).
This is the story of how globalisation has changed and continues to change the nature of Coventry city in terms of social and economic character. This is partly a product of Coventry’s economic history and partly a product of new systems of economic organisation associated with globalisation mirrored in other medium-sized cities throughout the world. In the year when Coventry has successfully been awarded City of Culture for 2021, a tribute to its inventiveness and resilience, it is particularly timely to reflect and asses the social and economic changes wrought by globalising forces that help explain how Coventry has become the city it now is, how these winds of change have revitalised it, but with certain costs accrued. To do so, this book is arranged in two parts; Part one offers a chronological overview of the economic history of Coventry from the late nineteenth century up until the period of decline and deindustrialisation associated with the collapse of the motor industry in the city. The second part of the book looks thematically at how the city has changed and altered since this traumatic event, buffeted by globalising forces, but also shaped by local and national intervention, as well as the actions of key actors in emerging sectors of the local economy.
The origins of these changes can be found in the watch-making and ribbon manufacturing enterprises that brought the first waves of industrialisation to Coventry at the end of the nineteenth century. In Chapter 2, Donnelly explores these businesses, showing how these sectors provided the basis for volume manufacturing of first bikes and then machine tools, but more significantly later, auto manufacturing. What Donnelly also captures so well is the impact of rapid growth on the city, as inflows of migrant labour, attracted by new employment opportunities, brought pressure to bear on services and infrastructure. Growing pains would be a recurring theme for the city, whenever it underwent rapid expansion. Ribbon and watch-making were ultimately out-competed by cheaper but effective foreign producers with better production methods and access to plentiful, inexpensive labour, not the last example in Coventry’s history of the city’s main economic base being unable to maintain parity with its rivals for a host of reasons related to size, structure and location. As each wave of international competition came forth, Coventry’s industries were forced to respond, either by cutting costs or diversifying.
Arguably international competition created a dynamic, entrepreneurial environment, a positive churn in the economic base of the city. Although of course there were significant difficulties for those employers and labourers impacted by these events, and this is well documented here. For those that diversified into automotive manufacture, the interwar period proved a golden era and Coventry could be seen to prosper. Important to this success was the protected nature of the market, a consequence of government intervention during WWI. The role of policymaking in the fortunes of the City’s key industries is the central theme of Busch’s chapter, exploring as he does the growing interconnectedness of business and government during the years of war and those in between.
Busch focuses in particular on the operation of the Shadow Factory Scheme(s) from the mid-1930s onwards. Echoing Donnelly, he shows how rapid growth impacted on the city’s residents, seen through the increasingly irate eyes of the local authorities. The picture that emerges is of an urgent, at times chaotic, atmosphere of development, heightened in its intensity by the threats posed by the international geopolitical situation. The sense of purpose shown by those involved is tempered by the realisation that many of the post-war problems encountered by Coventry city can be located in these actions. In particular, planning was not optimal, particularly post-conflict planning. Furthermore over-specialisation into a narrow range of economic activities had been encouraged by intervention, leaving the city vulnerable to shocks to core sectors, most notably automotive. Busch also stresses that the suspension of normal activities may have also created a sense of complacency amongst the city’s industrialists, meaning that by 1945 Coventry was not as well placed to take advantage of new and growing markets as has sometimes been understood. In fact, a protracted period of protection with limited opportunity to invest in research and design mean that once domestic and international demand for vehicles had been sated, Coventry’s automotive sector was not well-prepared to compete on the world stage.
The post-war boom was ultimately built on weak foundations. Subsequent interpretations of these halcyon years are difficult to disaggregate from the malaise and deep depression that followed. Here Haynes assesses the years before the downturn with a balanced view on growth and success measured against the social impacts of economic development on the residents of the city. By exploring the changes to culture he demonstrates how the opening up of the local economy brought new vistas to the life of its people. By the 1970s, however, the economic engine of Coventry was beginning to struggle, with waves of Foreign Direct Investment bringing more and more competition for local manufacturers. The opening-up of markets after the war also brought renewed competition. Collis details the decline of Coventry’s major firms, using shift-share analysis to place this decline in a broader context. The impact of globalising forces in Coventry is best exemplified by the motor industry, the change in its structure and organisation being brought about by inflows of not just capital but new ideas and means of production . With the support of new regional agencies, such as the West Midlands Regional development Agency, Coventry began to change, economically , but also in terms of labour skills, mobilit...