How famous is Sheffield?

[sparky_ 0]

Hello. New poster alert! 😮

I was discussing with someone the other day Sheffield's standing in relation to other European cities.  Where do we rank?  On the World stage we are not as well known as major European capitals eg. Rome, Paris, Madrid etc.  Or realistically even the second cities such as Milan, Marseille, Barcelona.  So which cities are our cultural equal?  

[Baron99 778]

Well for starters, we're not a capital city.  I don't really care where we rank against other European cities but by the looks of the increasing number of Chinese students in Sheffield, we're probably better known in Beijing than most? 

 

I think we should be more concerned as to our standing in the UK?  For one reason or another we don't appear to be on a par with the likes of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool & until that is addressed, you can generally forget about the European or world stage. 

[DerbyTup 10]

23 minutes ago, Baron99 said:

Well for starters, we're not a capital city.  I don't really care where we rank against other European cities but by the looks of the increasing number of Chinese students in Sheffield, we're probably better known in Beijing than most? 

 

I think we should be more concerned as to our standing in the UK?  For one reason or another we don't appear to be on a par with the likes of Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds or Liverpool & until that is addressed, you can generally forget about the European or world stage. 

On the nail for me. 

 

You could add Nottingham, Newcastle and a few other perhaps to that list.  

 

I think it's a bit unfair of the OP to be comparing us versus major capital cities in Europe - but we ought to have a higher profile in the UK maybe?  The thing is, we don't really stand for anything these days.  It used to be steel of course, but now it's nothing.  Drive past the railway station and look to the opposite side of the road and you'll see some hoardings which have been painted with various ideas about what Sheffield could be.  It says, "The music city"  and "The outdoors city"  and "The green city" and whatever else.  This is part of the problem.  It's something called "positioning" - a term coined by the famous American Jack Trout - in his book, "The Battle for your Mind".

 

What Trout says, essentially, is that you have got to stand for something.  You cannot stand for everything, or you stand for nothing.  

 

Sheffield hasn't made up it's mind yet what it wants to stand for.  When it does, it could maybe exploit that to it's commercial advantage.  And what that means, for those Sheffielder's who are disliking the sound of this already, is that we'll be able to fill in all t' oles in t' road wi't munneh!

[Ridgewalk 96]

Foreigners, only seem to have heard of London and Manchester in my experience.

 

Not sure what " standing in relation to other European cities " means ? Nor  do I care really.

 

Having a Premier League football club will raise the profile of the city and be positive for the economy apparently. Well done Blades.

 

Leeds by contrast,  although a cultural , media and financial hub, may not have a high profile in Europe..

 

Aren't we the largest city in Europe without an airport ?

[Temuchin 13]

If the Office of National Statistics is to be believed, Sheffield has a long way to go before gaining international fame. Reading? We can't even beat Reading?!

[philyyy 10]

Not sure where they went exactly but Yorkshire was the only region to have an increase in tourist numbers in the first half of 2018 (Latest available figures) so we might be heading in the right direction.

[Bilge 34]

52 minutes ago, philyyy said:

Not sure where they went exactly but Yorkshire was the only region to have an increase in tourist numbers in the first half of 2018 (Latest available figures) so we might be heading in the right direction.

Yorkshire tourism mostly equates to the Dales and NY Moors national parks, the seaside places, plus Leeds and York. The Yorkshire bit of the Peak District is not included in 'Welcome to Yorkshire' as the Peak park 'belongs' to Derbyshire in tourism terms. Sheffield has a bit of visitor action but not that much really, we can do better..

 

In terms of positioning or branding or place marketing, it's fine to have a few different images for a city, they're never simply defined by one thing. Being 'Steel City' was never an adequate definition. We're definitely a music city, definitely an outdoor city. Other things we can do better (retail, museums, stuff to do when it rains, food etc).

 

In the UK there is London, which is a global city. Then there are the big cities/regions Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. Look at where bands play if they only have a handful of dates in the UK, it's these places. The next rank is the regional capitals (eg Leeds). Then there is Sheff on the next rung..That's where we are and it's fine. All we can do is make Sheff as good as it possibly can be. We can close the gap on Leeds by being different and better in some ways, like Liverpool does with Manchester. But I doubt we  can ever 'get promotion' to those higher levels of economic and political importance.

 

Edited June 24, 2019 by Bilge

[GivenToFly 0]

The city has got potential that isn't being lived up to. Sheffield has significant rivers running right through it that other cities that have them capitalise on but Sheffield doesn't. The Don should be lined with all sorts of public amenities and nice spaces and infrastructure but isn't, Attercliffe should transformed into a sprawling silicone valley type place full modern engineering and tech firms served by a Vegas type quarter.

Edited June 24, 2019 by GivenToFly

[bluecanary 13]

Sheffield is known in some parts of the world, not necessarily for the things you might expect. I remember asking one Chinese student how he was aware of Sheffield as his response was "The Snooker"! We are also quite well known as the location of the Full Monty, and of course, less positive reasons such as the terrible event at Hillsborough in 30 years ago.

[PRESLEY 1,222]

Sheffield was internationally known for Steel, hence SteelCity plus World Snooker Championship.  By the way the Don is lined,  Wi shoppin trolleys.  Anyhow Sheffield on the move ( Full Monty) also puts us on the the map for Male Strippers.  

[Temuchin 13]

15 minutes ago, bluecanary said:

Sheffield is known in some parts of the world, not necessarily for the things you might expect. I remember asking one Chinese student how he was aware of Sheffield as his response was "The Snooker"! We are also quite well known as the location of the Full Monty, and of course, less positive reasons such as the terrible event at Hillsborough in 30 years ago.

Back in 1998, I was on a bus from Beijing to the Great Wall and got talking to a Chinese lad who asked where I was from. "Sheffield," I said, expecting a blank look. "Ah! Sheffield Wednesday! A great football team!" was the reply. Full marks for awareness of Sheffield, but zero for judgement 😎

[alchresearch 214]

11 hours ago, sparky_ said:

Hello. New poster alert! 😮

I was discussing with someone the other day Sheffield's standing in relation to other European cities.  Where do we rank?  On the World stage we are not as well known as major European capitals eg. Rome, Paris, Madrid etc.  Or realistically even the second cities such as Milan, Marseille, Barcelona.  So which cities are our cultural equal?  

Considering Sheffield isn't the UK's first or second city I don't see how you can compare it with the ones you mention.

 

I don't even know the name of Germany's or France's or Italy or Spain's fifth city, nor what they're famous for. 

 

I probably wouldn't have known the second cities (except for Barcelona) until you posted them.

 

However, Sheffield does OK on the world stage with plenty of other things making it famous.