Few cities in the world have embraced social change so heartily as MANCHESTER . From engine of the Industrial Revolution to test-bed of contemporary urban design, the city has no realistic provincial English rival. Its domestic dominance expresses itself in various ways, most swaggeringly in the success of Manchester United, the richest football club in Britain, but also in a thriving music and cultural scene that has given birth to world-beaters as diverse as the Hallé Orchestra and Oasis. Moreover, the city's concert halls, theatres, clubs and café society are boosted by England's largest student population and a blossoming gay community whose spending-power has created a pioneering Gay Village. For inspiration, Manchester's planners look to Barcelona - another revitalized industrial powerhouse - and, like Barcelona, the promise of a major sports event has powered much of the recent urban regeneration. The city didn't get the Olympics, though it wasn't for the want of trying, but instead landed the 2002 Commonwealth Games .

Manchester's rapid growth was the equal of any flowering of the Industrial Revolution - from little more than a village in 1750 to the world's major cotton-milling centre in only a hundred years. The spectacular rise of Cottonopolis , as it became known, came from the production of competitively priced imitations of expensive Indian calicoes, using machines evolved from Arkwright's first steam-powered cotton mill, which opened in 1783. The rapid industrialization of the area brought prosperity for a few but a life of misery for the majority. Exploitation had worsened still further by the time the 23-year-old Friedrich Engels came here in 1842 to work in his father's cotton plant, and the suffering he witnessed - recorded in his Condition of the Working Class in England - was a seminal influence on his later collaboration with Karl Marx, the Communist Manifesto .

Waterways and railway viaducts form the matrix into which the city's principal buildings have been bedded - as early as 1772 the Duke of Bridgewater had a canal cut to connect the city to the coal mines at Worsley, and the world's first passenger rail line, connecting Manchester with Liverpool, was opened in 1830. The Manchester Ship Canal, constructed to entice ocean-going vessels into Manchester and away from burgeoning Liverpool, was completed in 1894, and played a crucial part in reviving Manchester's competitiveness. Within sixty years, though, Manchester's docks, mills and canals were in steep decline. The traditional image of the struggling post-industrial city was of empty mills and factories, and rows of back-to-back houses - an image perpetuated, to an extent, by the popularity of Britain's longest-running TV soap opera, Coronation Street . Sporadic efforts were made to pull Manchester out of the economic doldrums of the 1960s and 1970s, but the main engine of change was the devastating IRA bomb , which exploded in June 1996 and wiped out much of the city's commercial infrastructure. Rather than simply patch up the buildings, the planning authorities embarked on an ambitious rebuilding scheme, which also came to embrace the Commonwealth Games' facilities and innovative millennium design projects. Entire new districts have taken shape as once-blighted areas along the canals are reclaimed for retail and residential use.

Some nice hotels to stay in, I would recommend to you Thistle Manchester Airport Hotel starting at £55 per night, 9.5 miles to the city center and the Britannia Country House Hotel starting at £39, 5 miles from the Manchester city center.

If Manchester can be said to have a centre, it's St Peter's Square and the cluster of buildings focused on it. South of here, the former Central Station now functions as the G-Mex exhibition centre, with the Hallé orchestra's home, Bridgewater Hall , opposite; Chinatown (Britain's largest) and the Gay Village are just a short walk to the east; while to the northeast, the revamped Piccadilly Gardens provides access to the so-called Northern Quarter , the funkiest of the regenerated inner-city areas. To the southwest is the Castlefield district, site of the Museum of Science and Industry. Eastern spine of the city is Deansgate , which runs from Castlefield to the Cathedral and, in its northern environs, displays the most dramatic core of urban regeneration in the country, centred on Exchange Square . Other city-centre diversions string out along the main southern artery Oxford Road . Southwest of the centre, trams run out to Salford Quays where the renovated docks and quays now maintain two high-profile visitor attractions, The Lowry arts centre and the Imperial War Museum North; and no soccer fan will want to miss the tour of nearby Old Trafford , home of Manchester United.

Year-round, two-hour guided walks can be booked at the Visitor Centre in St Peter's Square - there are usually two or three departures a week.

Manchester is blessed with the North's most highly regarded orchestra , the Hallé, which is resident at the Bridgewater Hall. The Cornerhouse is the local arts mainstay, while a full range of mainstream and fringe theatres produce a year-round programme of events. The Printworks , Manchester's urban entertainment complex, contains the twenty-screen Filmworks cinema as well as an IMAX (giant-screen) cinema, while art-house screenings are at the Cornerhouse. The biggest annual fest is the Manchester Festival , an arts and TV extravaganza, with events in the city's clubs, theatres and open spaces. The X.Trax/Streets Ahead Festival showcases live theatre, music and entertainment, while other annual events include the city's Irish Festival, Jazz Festival, and Food and Drink Festival.

Bridgewater Hall Lower Mosley St tel 0161/907 9000, . Home of the Hallé (founded 1857); also chamber, classical and jazz concerts.

The Comedy Store Deansgate Locks, Whitworth St West tel 08705/932932, . Nationwide stand-up comedy talent, with gigs every Wed-Sat.

Contact Theatre 15 Oxford Rd tel 0161/274 3434, . One of the most innovative theatre companies, housed in provocatively designed premises.

Cornerhouse 70 Oxford St tel 0161/200 1500, . Engaging arts centre, with three cinema screens, art exhibitions, recitals, talks, bookshop, café and bar.

Dancehouse Theatre 10 Oxford Rd tel 0161/237 9753. Home of the Northern Ballet School, and venue for dance, drama and comedy.

The Filmworks Printworks, Exchange Square tel 08700/102030, . State-of-the-art cinema-going - twenty screens, digital projection and comfortable seating.

Green Room 54-56 Whitworth St West tel 0161/950 5900. Rapidly changing fringe programme which includes theatre, dance, mime and cabaret.

Library Theatre St Peter's Square tel 0161/236 7110. Classic drama and new writing, in an intimate theatre beneath the Central Library.

The Lowry Pier 8, Salford Quays tel 0161/876 2000. Full, year-round programme of music events, from opera to country.

Royal Exchange Theatre St Ann's Square tel 0161/833 9833, . The most famous stage in the city - there's a Studio Theatre (for works by new writers) alongside the main stage.

Royal Northern College of Music ( RNCM ) 124 Oxford Rd tel 0161/907 5278, . Stages top-quality classical and modern-jazz concerts.

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