Never mind Shanghai. Germany’s energy capital could jumpstart Liverpool

So did you hear the story of the northern twins? As like each other as two new pins?

It’s a story we know so well around here. It’s our story. A made in Liverpool tale of two DNA-sharing protagonists whose differences in social class and upbringing drives them apart. One falls in with the wrong crowd and presses the self-destruct button, while the other transforms and flourishes.

But this isn’t a tale of Mickey and Edward, there will be no Barbara Dickson (although I heartily recommend you stick the soundtrack on Spotify while you’re reading.) This is a tale about Liverpool and the city of Essen, in northern Germany. I visited recently, and the more I learned about Essen’s recent history, the more I was struck by a sobering realization: this could so easily have been our story too. If ever there were two cities separated at birth, it’s these two. And if ever there was a cautionary tale about the fatal repercussions of just a few missteps, it’s ours…

Tell Me It’s Not True

Liverpool loves a twin city. At the last count we had about 130 of them, from New Orleans to Rio de Janeiro. Despite the civic proclamations, our partnerships feel more like wish lists than genuine meetings of equals.  I mean… Shanghai? That’s like me saying I’m a body double for Patrick Schwarzenegger.

But I’m making the case that we drop one (pick one at random. How about Birmingham, Alabama. All we’ve done is give them a Superlambanana) for Essen. 

Essen: A northern German city, population around half a million. Its formative years began in the industrial boom of the 19th century. Essen’s coal and steel industries were the envy of the world. The city’s fortunes started to decline after WWII, leading to widespread social and economic problems, most notably in its post-industrial north. 

Liverpool: A northern British city, population around half a million. Its formative years began in the industrial boom of the 19th century. Liverpool’s docks were the envy of the world. The city’s fortunes started to decline after WWII, leading to widespread social and economic problems, most notably in its post-industrial north. 

Say it’s just a story

So far, so tragic twins. But it’s what happens next that sets these two characters on their dramatically diverging trajectories.

Today, both cities orbit bigger, richer regional capitals. Essen is around 40 kilometres from Düsseldorf. Liverpool is around 40 kilometres from Manchester.

Despite this, the twins see their place in the world through very different lenses. One complains about how its larger neighbour robs it of its potential, the other uses its regional gravitational pull to its benefit.

Essen knows it’s in the Goldilocks Zone: close enough to harness its star’s life-giving energy – skilled workforce, strong business links, good transport hub – and far enough away not to get burned – enjoying lower living costs, cleaner air and a friendlier environment for startups to thrive.

Meanwhile, the Liverpool-Manchester relationship has historically been characterised by spats and accusations. Of complaints about economic disadvantages, student ‘brain-drains’ and central Government green-lighting Manchester’s huge capital projects.

Both cities were European Capitals of Culture – Liverpool in 2008, Essen in 2010. Essen never looked back. Liverpool failed to cohesively move forward. Today, Essen is a hugely successful, green and vibrant city, and Liverpool is Liverpool.

Essen’s GDP is roughly £25 billion, Liverpool’s is £16.7 billion. Essen has turned its fortunes around and established itself as a model for regeneration and renewal. How did it do that? And what, if anything, can we learn from it?

Essen’s big idea vs Liverpool’s would you like another idea?

Essen’s transformation started with a simple plan – and they stuck to it. The city embraced what economists call “path dependency”— they recognised that each choice narrowed future options and required commitment. Strategic choices, such as investing in ecological renewal, helped to encourage service industries (Essen lured energy company E.ON away from bigger Düsseldorf, along with ThyssenKrupp and Deichmann’s HQs amongst others). Prioritising climate action required overcoming both institutional inertia and public scepticism. With each move the city was saying we’re on a new trajectory. Not we’re green one minute, then trying to sell off our parks the next. 

All too often, Liverpool’s tendency to spin all possibilities simultaneously produces paralysis—a city perpetually considering all options while committing decisively to none. Want a new strategic investment framework? Don’t worry, three will be along in a minute. 

Essen knew when its industrial heyday was over it was time to write a new chapter. So it decisively shifted away from its traditional industrial base in the 70s, when Liverpool was still dazed and confused, stuck in the silted up mudflats of the Albert Docks, wondering where all the ships had gone.

While we dithered over a unified plan for reinvention, Essen launched its ‘Strukturwandel’ (‘Structural Change’) programme: and everyone bought in. As a result, out went the wastelands of heavy industry, in came bold transformation.

“We knew, early on, that green urban development is the key to a liveable, attractive, and growing city,” explains Simone Raskob, Head of Department for Environment, Transport, and Sport in the City of Essen.

Essen is now the third greenest city in Germany and was named “European Green Capital” in 2017. In many development projects, parks and lakes are implemented first and once in place, they become powerful triggers for further inward investment. 

A 2022 University of Sheffield study placed Liverpool third from the bottom for green spaces, out of 68 UK cities. What does that look like? The loss of our World Heritage status, to be replaced by Elliot-branded skeleton towers, a Commercial District littered with surface car parks half a century after the buildings were demolished, and too much of our prime historic waterfront real estate repurposed as scrap heaps and buddleia farms.

Stability vs Scrapping

Essen’s city council is a model of political stability, with clear leadership and continuity. The current mayor, Thomas Kufen, has been in office for a decade, overseeing a coalition between the CDU and the Greens: and remaining strong and successful enough to fight off any advance of Germany’s far right AfD party, while we get our first Reform councillor in St Helens.

This contrasts sharply with our decades of turbulent governance. Since the 1980s, we’ve cycled through more political upheavals and scandals than a really tiresome Netflix drama. The sturm und drang politics of the Militant era, government interventions, corruption and nepotism scandals, and most recently the Caller Report that led to commissioners taking control—each episode effectively resetting the city’s strategic direction. Sorry, I mean ‘strategic direction’.

“You cannot build a 20-year transformation with turbulence and chaos,” explains Prof. Dr. Uta Hohn, urban governance expert at Ruhr University. “Essen’s success relies on cooperation between formal planning institutions and stakeholders, including local government, businesses, civil society, and residents.”

Meanwhile, we opt for stakeholders of the calibre of Signature Living, North Point Global, the Flanagan Group or any of the dozens of stalled developments littering the city.

Strategic Vision vs Wishful Thinking

Liverpool’s litany of unrealised strategic frameworks are the stuff of sorry legend. When they inevitably fail, they simply scrub out ’2020′ from their City Plan, and hastily rename it their ‘2040 Growth Strategy.’ Which is a bit like Hermes changing its name to Evri. You’re not fooling anyone. We all know they’re still going to throw the parcel over the gate and smash it. 

Meanwhile, Essen’s structural transformation wasn’t piecemeal but a coordinated, long-term strategy with clear focus on economic diversification, education, infrastructure, environmental renewal, and social inclusion. The difference is stark: Liverpool produces strategies (spending millions—£10 million and counting on the Mersey Barrage), Essen executes them.

Critical to Essen’s success is “Planungskontinuität”— planning continuity —that transcends political cycles. Liverpool’s planning landscape often resembles what one former regeneration director described as “strategic amnesia”—each new administration seemingly unaware of previous work. Or lack of it. 

Momentum vs Memory

Essen leverages heritage as a foundation to build upon, while Liverpool packages it as a souvenir.

Essen transformed its industrial past into a launchpad for future innovation through the Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex. Once Europe’s largest coal mine, Zollverein is a UNESCO World Heritage site that now houses design museums, performance spaces, and start-up hubs where creative industries flourish alongside historical preservation. The venue, in the more economically challenged north of the city, is alive with energy and possibilities. In the way that the British Music Experience isn’t.  

A UNESCO World Heritage site, Zollverein proves how these don’t have to be anathema to progress. Its protection means that, unlike Baltic, Ten Streets or the Fabric District, this place can never be gentrified, turned into student flats or get slapped with noise abatement orders. It’s alive every day of the week. Not just on match days. 

Meanwhile, Liverpool has cultivated a museum culture that feels preserved in amber. The Beatles Story, Cream Classical, Cavern Club facsimiles, and endless nostalgia-driven exhibitions serve primarily as tourist attractions rather than catalysts for new cultural production. 

Where Essen uses its industrial architecture as incubators for new creative momentum, we’re obsessed with memory.

People Power vs Civic Pronouncements

Essen embraces bottom-up governance through its “stadtteilkonferenz” (district conference) model—neighbourhood conferences where citizens directly influence local development priorities with real budgetary control.

Liverpool’s approach remains stubbornly top-down. Despite occasional community consultation, major development decisions typically emerge fully-formed from council chambers or developers’ offices. Like those night time parking charges. 

“Why aren’t we listening to the mavericks?” asks Liverpool Cultural Consultant Yaw Owusu. “This city is full of smart people, but no-one in the council seeks their advice. We’re living off legacies such as The Beatles and James Barton. We look back and clap them when they’ve gone, instead of supporting the next generation.”

The city’s new £6.75 million MusicFutures will go some way towards that, hoping to establish us as a place where music and tech combine to create exciting new possibilities. 

But this is just a five year-funded project and, as Yaw says, we need to be thinking about what happens next…now.

“We have these amazing moments in time, and we always fail to capitalise on them. We need to bring investors here, like they do at South by Southwest, and show them what talent there is here,” Yaw says. “We can take it from there.” 

Spectacle vs Substance

Liverpool’s civic strategy has pivoted toward hosting high-profile, one-off spectacles—Eurovision 2023, the Giants, Taylor Swift concerts—that generate momentary international attention but leave questionable lasting impact, despite the official figures that suggest a cash bonanza beyond our wildest dreams because some tourists bought an extra round of cocktails in the Alchemist. But what happens when the party’s over?

Essen has pursued what its economic development office calls “Der langsame Weg” (the slow path)—prioritizing consistent investment in permanent cultural infrastructure over splashy one-off events.

Liverpool’s cultural scene is bursting with world-class venues and talent, yet its institutions often operate in stubborn isolation—missing crucial opportunities to amplify each other’s work and reach new audiences.

“No one talks to each other,” says Kate Haldane, chair of the board at the Royal Court. “How do potential audiences get to know what’s happening if we in the culture sector don’t know either?”

“People can’t afford to go out as much as they used to, so there’s a feeling that venues want to jealously protect their audience more than they want to spread the word about the city’s offer as a whole.”

Essen’s cultural sector is notably interconnected and democratic, with strong partnerships between its major institutions, city authorities and private sponsors. The city’s Capital of Culture fostered long-term collaborations, with venues like PACT Zollverein serving as major hubs for creativity, and the Folkwang University of the Arts deliberately working with the city’s museums, theatres and musicians. 

“I get that organizations are overstretched,” Haldane says, “But all too often I hear of amazing events in, say, the Jacaranda or talks by the University, after they’ve happened. And I’m in the industry! What chance is there for them to broaden their audiences outside their own little silos.”

Lessons learned 

Essen isn’t perfect – despite transforming the Zollverein Coal Mine site in the north, this part of the city still faces significant socioeconomic challenges. The city also never had to deal with austerity. 

Of course the needle is being nudged in the right direction in some areas – life sciences, the SME cluster in the Baltic, cruises and advanced manufacturing. But, City Region-wide the pace of change remains frustratingly stop-start. I’ve witnessed lichen advance across the surface of ancient megaliths faster. 

The contrasts between us remain stark. Essen successfully attracted major corporate headquarters by creating the conditions, the continuity of purpose and the culture that make such relocations inevitable. The rest fell into place. 

Some may say that comparisons are futile. That Liverpool is not like anywhere else. Yeahmaybewhatever. What’s undeniably true is that we are an exceptional city, full of amazingly talented people. 

The lessons from Essen aren’t about specific policies but about the fundamentals: strategic patience, political stability, community empowerment, and systematic implementation. Liverpool doesn’t lack creative ideas or ambitious visions—our city has produced these in abundance. What we’ve lacked is the courage and commitment to transform those visions into our lived reality.

Caught between the glories of the past and the promises of tomorrow, we remain rooted to the spot. Stuck in the always present now, not knowing which way to turn. 

Essen proves that the best time to plant seeds for a new city is fifty years ago. The second best time is right now. 

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