Steel City: Deindustrialisation and Peripheralisation in Sheffield, UK [translation of Steel city: deindustrializzazione e periferizzazione a Sheffield]

This chapter focuses on processes of deindustrialisation and peripheralisation in the steel city of Sheffield, UK. In many respects archetypal of the trajectories of many deindustrialising cities of the Global North, Sheffield developed around the steel and mining industries and subsequently declined when redundancies and closures hit those industries concurrently from the late 1970s. Throughout successive phases of industrialisation, deindustrialisation, and post-industrial restructuring, Sheffield has undergone multiple processes of peripheralisation and centralisation that have (re)shaped economic and social geographies. This chapter sketches the contours of principle peripheralising processes in the city over the last two centuries, focussing on the period from the 1970s to the present day. We draw on both historical analysis and quantitative data analysis of employment and deprivation to understand the depth of urban inequalities and emphasise the geographic and affective scope of the problem. We do this through historicizing two concepts: economic scarring and social segregation. It is argued that, despite repeated and varied attempts to reimagine the political economy of Sheffield, closures in the steel and coal industries entrenched socio-spatial inequalities ranging across economic, social and cultural indicators that have endured and, in some cases, intensified since. Contributing to a growing literature appreciating the long term effects of deindustrialisation, our analysis suggests that the effects of deindustrialisation are readable within cities, as well as between.