About Sunderland
Sunderland is a city located in Tyne and Wear, it was once a county borough but it now forms part of the city of Sunderland. The city is positioned at the mouth of the River Wear. Its name “Sunderland” reportedly comes from the Anglo Saxon name “Soender-land” meaning “part” and “broken”. This name is thought to hail from the valley that has been created by the river. It was once part of county Durham and was originally settled in 930 when it was called “Monkwearmouth”, there were originally three settlements located on what today we call Sunderland. Over the many years since then the city has grown rapidly as a port, trading in mostly coal, and salt before ship building began to take hold in the 14t5h century. In 2001 the population of Sunderland was 177.739 and is the 26th largest city in England measuring 3,874 hectares.
Traditionally some of the major industries have been coal mining and ship building. Coal mining was massive in Sunderland especially in the 1920’s when it employed over 170.000 miners and miners from all over England moved to the area to work in the mines. Ship building was once also huge in Sunderland, and was once quoted as being the biggest ship building city in the world. Ship building goes back centuries in Sunderland, and grew rapidly every century. During World War II 245 merchant ships were built and launched from the docks which was one quarter of all merchant ships produced at this time in England.
There are other large industries in Sunderland such as glass production and many breweries. The city has been rejuvenated in the last few years, the car production company Nissan moved a huge factory in 1986, and was named one of the top seven “intelligent cities” in the world. The once bustling shipping ports have also been rejuvenated to include new houses, a marina, the University, the National Glass Centre, the stadium of light, Sunderland FC’s football stadium, Hylton Riverside retail park, a huge shopping centre, and a huge aquatic centre.
People who live in the area have a strong sense of regional identity that echoes the industrial heritage of the centuries gone by.
The era of heavy industry in the area was vital in creating a sense of identity, with communities being based around work in heavy industries and workers free time spent drinking and socialising in pubs after a long day of hard graft. There has been an economic decline in the north east but despite this the strong identity and sentiments amongst it’s people remains. There is still a strong sense of social activities with the region stemming from this, through drinking, football and going out.
In the 1990’s and 2000’s the city of Newcastle developed a reputation as a party city which helped with tourism and the development of the nightlife and leisure facilities. According to a recent pole by (Nayak, 2003: 66) Newcastle is the eighth biggest party city in the world. There has been some regeneration based on this impression of the area. Many post industrial cities have used cultural-regeneration to help revitalise their ailing economies and many of them successfully.