“Bradford’s role in life is to make every place else in the world look better in comparison,” the American travel writer Bill Bryson declared in his 1995 book Notes from a Small Island. Then he added a sting: “And it does this very well.”

For Bradfordians (I count myself among them) the line hurts because it taps into a wider British habit of looking at the city through the lens of decline. But 30 years on, the city’s current regeneration push could be seen as an attempt to rewrite that sentence and shed its down-at-heel reputation. 

Backed by its City of Culture 2025 title and record levels of investment in city centre regeneration, Bradford is reasserting itself as a thriving, multicultural metropolis. That ambition has earned it a place on Building Design’s shortlist for UK Design Capital of the Year 2026 – part of the Architect of the Year Awards.