Alternative second tier British cities

IOTL London has become by far and away the biggest city of mainland Britain. In various discussions we've had on this board over the years, the general conclusion is that this is pretty much inevitable without a very early POD.

But what about second tier cities? There are various measurements of city size, metropolitan area, urban area etc, but I think people broadly agree these are the reasonably big cities after London:

- Manchester
- Birmingham
- Glasgow
- Liverpool
- Sheffield
- Leeds
- Newcastle

The big growth of all of these was over the industrial revolution: generally a place started some part of the industrial process and benefitted from the snowball effect. So what other cities could have got there, and how could they have done it?

Suggestions:
- Southampton
- York
- Hull
- Bristol
- Swansea
- Cardiff
- Exeter
- Norwich
 
- Norwich

Norwich actually was a second-tier city before the 18th century, although I'm not sure it can retain that position after the Industrial Revolution begins -- the area around it is quite flat, so there are no fast-flowing rivers like you get Up North.
 
You missed Edinburgh off the first list and, depending on your definition of "British", Belfast should be there too.

Another good candidate for the list would be Chester, which was one of the most important cities in England throughout the middle ages, only declining as the silting up of the river Dee closed the harbour and caused shipping to move to Liverpool. To keep its importance you probably need to find some way of preserving its access to the sea, probably via a more aggressive campaign of canal building in the 18th/19th centuries on the scale of the Manchester Ship Canal.
 
As a Coventrian I feel honour-bound to mention my city :p. Coventry was an important city in the Middle Ages in the wool trade, perhaps if it manages to diversify before Birmingham starts growing it might be able to start its own snowball effect?
 
As a Coventrian I feel honour-bound to mention my city :p. Coventry was an important city in the Middle Ages in the wool trade, perhaps if it manages to diversify before Birmingham starts growing it might be able to start its own snowball effect?

Maybe not get bombed to death. Then its a key industrial hub.

-Geordie laughs at the Conventrian-
 
Maybe not get bombed to death. Then its a key industrial hub.

-Geordie laughs at the Conventrian-
It was bombed because it was a key industrial city, and it was still important after WW2. However this is too late a POD for the city to be second-tier IMO, Birmingham is already too big and any growth will tend to go to there instead. It's the same for a few places in the area. The POD for a second-tier Coventry probably needs to be quite a bit earlier.

Also why are you laughing at me?
 
It was bombed because it was a key industrial city, and it was still important after WW2. However this is too late a POD for the city to be second-tier IMO, Birmingham is already too big and any growth will tend to go to there instead. It's the same for a few places in the area. The POD for a second-tier Coventry probably needs to be quite a bit earlier.

Also why are you laughing at me?

Sorry. Just a bit tired and laughing that Newcastle is now more relevant (just a bit of city rivalry, for we are the best industrial city!). Coventry is cooler though (grandfather built spitfire engines there) if I caused annoyance I'm sorry.
 
Sorry. Just a bit tired and laughing that Newcastle is now more relevant (just a bit of city rivalry, for we are the best industrial city!). Coventry is cooler though (grandfather built spitfire engines there) if I caused annoyance I'm sorry.
Sorry, I wasn't annoyed I was just confused. Coventry used to be a great industrial city, we're definitely not now though. Newcastle's metropolitan area is much bigger too.
 
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