The strategy of regeneration and reinvention of local industrial heritage and infrastructure has in turn attracted new investment to formerly run-down parts of Greater Manchester, and it can be applied elsewhere. What has been achieved in Ancoats, "the world's first industrial suburb" just to the north of the city centre, is exemplary. The old cotton mills, factories, warehouses are now residential and office buildings, and the Rochdale and Ancoats Canal has been cleaned up and transformed. One of our authors, Elizabeth Myers, grew up in the then-grimy, smoky Ancoats; she is the author of A Well Full of Leaves..