Stories from the Road
During 2015, Manchester writer, Sarah Butler, mapped Manchester’s 'Corridor' using the stories of people who have lived, worked and travelled along Oxford Road.
Funded through a Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), awarded through The University of Manchester, these stories generate a layered picture of this rapidly changing part of the city and what it means to the people who experience it.
Stories from the Road offers an alternative map of The Corridor. It celebrates the individual stories which inform, create and question our cities and their production and reproduction day in and day out.
Locations
Oxford Road is home to a huge range of stakeholders, users and organisations. Activity in the 'knowledge economy' is double the regional and national average with Oxford Road home both to the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University, as well as Manchester Science Park, the National Graphene Institute and the Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
The road and the surrounding district is also shared by multiple cultural institutions including Whitworth Art Gallery, the Manchester Museum, Manchester School of Art, HOME, the Palace Theatre and Manchester Central Library.
The institutions, businesses and attractions of Oxford Road bring thousands of commuters, students, residents and visitors along what is reputedly the ‘busiest bus route in Europe’ every day.
Stories
From academics to booksellers, bus drivers to commuters, curators to cyclists, medics to scientists, contributors to Stories From The Road include a varied cross-section of Oxford Road’s population, those for whom it has figured in the makings of their lives in Manchester.
- Read the stories (PDF, 5.5MB)
The Manchester Urban Institute are grateful to Social Responsibility at the School of Environment, Education and Development and to Manchester Metropolitan University for financial contributions towards the design and production of the Stories from the Road books.