page_title: History of Coventry
section_title: Postwar
hierarchical_section_title: History of Coventry / 20th century / Postwar
caption_attribution_description: Three Spires in Coventry, UK
context_page_description: Coventry grew to become one of the most important cities in England during the Middle Ages due to its booming cloth and textiles trade. The city was noted for its part in the English Civil War, and later became an important industrial city during the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the centre of the British bicycle and later motor industry. The devastating Blitz in 1940 destroyed much of the city centre, and saw its rebuilding during the 1950s and 60s. The motor industry slumped during the 1970s and 80s, and Coventry saw high unemployment. However, in the new millennium the city, along with many others saw significant urban renaissance and in 2017 it was announced that the city had been awarded the title of 2021 UK City of Culture.
context_section_description: After the war, the city was extensively rebuilt. The new city centre built in the 1950s was designed by young town planner Donald Gibson and included one of Europe's first traffic-free shopping precincts.
  The new Broadgate was opened by Princess Elizabeth in 1948, and the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral was opened in 1962 next to and incorporating the ruins of the old cathedral. It was designed by Basil Spence and contains the tapestry, Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph by Graham Sutherland, and the bronze statue St Michael's Victory over the Devil by Jacob Epstein adorns the exterior wall.
  As a result of postwar redevelopment, Coventry now shares in the stereotype of 1960s architecture: concrete and brutalist. The development of Coventry's central business district was unnaturally restricted through the construction of a major orbital ringroad in the early-1970s, leading to a hodge-podge of "mixed use" city zones with no clearly defined functions, aside from the cathedral quarter and a dated 1950s shopping precinct. The construction of the Cathedral Lanes shopping complex in 1990 at Broadgate significantly altered the original layout. Nevertheless, several pockets of the city centre still have a number of fine medieval and neo-Gothic buildings (Ford's Hospital, The Golden Cross, St Mary's Guildhall, Spon Street, the Old Blue Coat School, the Council House, and the Holy Trinity Church etc.) having survived both the Blitz and the post-war planners. 
  The city was twinned with Dresden, which had suffered an even more devastating attack by the Anglo-American bombing late in the war, and groups from both cities became involved in demonstrations of post-war reconciliation. The city played a major role in representing the entire nation when the reconstruction of the Dresden Frauenkirche was completed in 2003.
  Throughout the 1950s and up until the mid-1970s, Coventry remained prosperous and was often monikered as "Motor City" or "Britain's Detroit" due to the large concentration of car production plants across the city, notably Jaguar, Standard-Triumph (part of British Leyland), Hillman-Chrysler (later Talbot and Peugeot) and Alvis. During this period, the city had one of the country's highest standards of living outside of south-eastern England. The population of the city peaked in the late-1960s at around 335,000.
  The introduction of high-quality housing developments, particularly around the city's southern suburbs (such as Cannon Park, Styvechale Grange and south Finham) catered for a larger middle-class (and relatively well-paid working-class) population. Coupled with some of the UK's finest sporting and leisure facilities of the time, including an Olympic-standard swimming complex and a pedestrianised shopping precinct, Coventrians enjoyed a short-lived golden age.
  However, the British industry was hit hard by industrial disputes, quality control issues and increasing foreign competition – as well as two recessions – between 1973 and 1982, and Coventry was among the cities affected. By 1982, unemployment in Coventry was approaching 20%, one of the highest rates of any British city at the time. A corresponding rapid increase in petty crime also began to give the city a poor reputation nationally.
  One of the biggest blows to hit the city during this era was the closure of the Triumph car factory at Canley in August 1980.
  The Rootes Group factory just outside the city at Ryton had been taken over by American carmaker Chrysler in 1964, which saw the company integrated with the French carmaker Simca. The company was sold to Peugeot in 1978 and the Talbot brand was introduced on the former Chrysler and Simca badged cars. Sales of the Ryton-built cars slumped during the early 1980s, but a few uncertain years the plant's future was secured when Peugeot decided to phase out the Talbot brand in the mid 1980s and built its own cars there.
  A hit record widely believed to be about Coventry, "Ghost Town" by local band The Specials, summed up the situation in the city in the summer of 1981.
  The economic recession of 1990 to 1992 also hit the c
caption: The "Three Spires" as seen over rooftops
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