Nine cities transformed by industry

Large industrial companies are increasingly becoming more than major employers. In many cities, they are helping finance infrastructure, education, cultural institutions, urban regeneration and the transition to cleaner technologies. From semiconductor manufacturing in the Netherlands to green steel in Austria and automotive innovation in South Korea, industry is changing not only what cities produce, but also how people live in them.

Here are nine cities where the relationship between industry and urban development is particularly visible.

1. Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Eindhoven is one of Europe's clearest examples of a city reinventing itself through industry.

For much of the 20th century, its development was closely associated with Philips. When the electronics company began restructuring and moving parts of its operations away from Eindhoven in the 1990s, the city faced a major economic challenge. Instead of allowing its industrial base to disappear, Eindhoven gradually transformed the former Philips ecosystem into what is now Brainport Eindhoven, one of Europe's most important high-tech clusters.

Today, companies including ASML, NXP, Philips and VDL work alongside Eindhoven University of Technology, research institutes and local authorities. ASML alone is considering an expansion in the Brainport area capable of accommodating as many as 20,000 additional employees in the longer term.

Rapid industrial growth has also created pressure on housing, transport, electricity networks and education. The Dutch government therefore announced a €2.5 billion package to strengthen infrastructure in the region, while ASML, NXP, Philips, VDL and other companies established a corporate fund worth roughly €200 million to support regional development.

Eindhoven illustrates a new European model of an industrial city: rather than depending on a single factory, the city has developed an ecosystem linking advanced manufacturing, universities, startups, urban infrastructure and international talent.

2. Wolfsburg, Germany

Few European cities are as closely connected to one company as Wolfsburg is to Volkswagen. The city grew around the automotive industry, and Volkswagen remains central not only to employment but also to education, research and urban development.

One example is 42 Wolfsburg, a nonprofit software-engineering school that opened in 2021 with a €3.7 million contribution from Volkswagen. The school uses peer-to-peer learning rather than traditional lectures and is intended partly to strengthen the region's software and digital-skills base as the automotive sector becomes increasingly technology-driven.

The city, Volkswagen, universities and research institutions are also working on the expansion of Wolfsburg's university and innovation campus. The objective is to create an environment where industrial facilities can become real-world laboratories for technologies such as digital manufacturing, circular materials and mobility.

Wolfsburg itself is becoming a testing ground. In December 2025, Volkswagen began operating its Gen.Urban autonomous research vehicle on public streets in the city to study how passengers interact with fully automated vehicles.

The result is a gradual transition from the traditional concept of an automotive company town towards a mobility and software research centre.

3. Linz, Austria

Industry has shaped Linz for generations, with steelmaking remaining one of the foundations of the local economy. Today, however, the city is becoming an important European testing ground for the decarbonisation of heavy industry.

Steelmaker Voestalpine is investing around €1.5 billion in the first stage of its greentec steel programme. From 2027, electric arc furnaces powered primarily by electricity are scheduled to begin operating in Linz and Donawitz, replacing part of the traditional coal-based production process. The company expects this first stage to reduce its CO₂ emissions by around 30% by 2029 compared with 2019, equivalent to roughly 3–4 million tonnes of CO₂ annually.

Linz is also home to the H2FUTURE hydrogen project. Its six-megawatt electrolyser can produce approximately 1,200 cubic metres of hydrogen per hour, and a €16.4 million expansion is adding hydrogen purification, compression and storage infrastructure.

An even larger demonstration project, Hy4Smelt, is being developed at the Linz site to test hydrogen-based iron reduction combined with electric smelting. With more than €170 million in funding, it has become Austria's largest climate-protection research project.

For Linz, the future of the industrial city therefore depends not on abandoning steel production, but on finding ways to manufacture steel with dramatically lower emissions.

4. Turin, Italy

Turin's modern identity was built around Fiat. At its peak, the enormous Mirafiori complex employed tens of thousands of people and made the city one of the centres of European automobile manufacturing.

That relationship has become more complicated as European car production has declined and the automotive industry has shifted towards electrification, software and circular manufacturing. Mirafiori has experienced significant reductions in conventional vehicle production, making Turin an example of both the opportunities and risks facing Europe's traditional industrial centres.

Stellantis is attempting to reposition the site. One initiative is the Mirafiori Circular Economy Hub, where vehicles and components can be remanufactured, refurbished and recycled. The company has also selected Mirafiori for one of its new grEEn-campus projects, designed to transform existing corporate buildings into lower-emission, collaborative working environments.

Turin has meanwhile diversified into aerospace, design, technology, higher education and tourism. In 2025, it was named the European Capital of Smart Tourism, reflecting how a city historically dominated by automobile manufacturing is trying to combine its industrial heritage with a broader urban economy.

Turin demonstrates that industrial transformation does not always mean straightforward growth: sometimes it is a process of adapting an entire city to the decline of an industry that once dominated it.

5. Toulouse, France

Toulouse provides a different model. Rather than moving away from its industrial specialisation, the city has continued to reinforce it.

Airbus is headquartered in the Toulouse area, which has developed into one of the world's most important aerospace clusters. The company's presence supports a network of manufacturers, engineering companies, universities, laboratories and specialised service providers.

In June 2026, Airbus inaugurated a second modernised A320-family final assembly line at its Jean-Luc Lagardère facility. Together, the two production lines are expected to employ almost 1,500 people when operating at full capacity. The enormous central hangar alone covers 122,000 square metres, approximately the area of 500 tennis courts.

Industrial development has also expanded into education. A new Airbus Training and Flight Operations Campus in Toulouse-Blagnac is designed to accommodate around 10,000 pilots, mechanics and other trainees annually, with up to 12 full-flight simulators.

This combination of manufacturing, research and specialised education has helped Toulouse become something more than a factory location: aerospace has become part of the city's labour market, university system, international identity and physical landscape.

6. Gothenburg, Sweden

Volvo and Gothenburg have developed together for almost a century. Volvo Group was founded in the city in 1927 and remains headquartered there, while Gothenburg continues to host major automotive research and manufacturing operations.

But the relationship is evolving beyond conventional vehicle production.

In 2025, Volvo Group and Daimler Truck established Coretura, a Gothenburg-based joint venture developing a common software-defined vehicle platform for commercial vehicles. The company began with around 50 employees and is expected to expand as development progresses.

Volvo's industrial heritage has also become part of the city's cultural infrastructure. World of Volvo, jointly created by Volvo Cars and Volvo Group, opened in central Gothenburg in April 2024. The 22,000-square-metre complex combines a 4,500-square-metre exhibition with restaurants, meeting facilities and an event hall accommodating more than 1,000 people.

The project illustrates how a company historically associated with factories can become part of a city's tourism, architecture and public cultural life as well.

7. Detroit, United States

Detroit remains perhaps the world's best-known example of a city shaped by a single industrial sector. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler turned it into the centre of global mass automobile production during the 20th century.

After decades of deindustrialisation, the automotive industry is now contributing to a very different form of regeneration.

Ford acquired the long-abandoned Michigan Central Station in 2018 and spent six years restoring it. The building reopened in 2024 as the centrepiece of a 30-acre mobility and technology district in Detroit's Corktown neighbourhood.

The wider Michigan Central campus contains around 1.2 million square feet of commercial space, including laboratories, offices, public spaces and facilities for testing new mobility technologies. Newlab, one of its innovation centres, had already attracted nearly 100 startups and companies shortly after opening.

The symbolism is striking: a railway station that spent decades as one of Detroit's most recognisable symbols of urban decline has become a centre for electric mobility, startups and transport technology.

Industry shaped Detroit's first growth cycle. The city is now testing whether the next generation of mobility companies can contribute to its regeneration.

8. Ulsan, South Korea

Ulsan developed into South Korea's industrial powerhouse around shipbuilding, petrochemicals and automobile production. Hyundai Motor's enormous manufacturing complex is one of the city's defining features.

Now the company's investments are beginning to change the type of industry located there.

Hyundai has invested approximately KRW 2 trillion, or around $1.5 billion, in a dedicated electric-vehicle facility in Ulsan. Built on a 548,000-square-metre site, the plant was designed for production capacity of around 200,000 electric vehicles per year.

The company is simultaneously building a new hydrogen fuel-cell facility on the site of a former internal-combustion-engine transmission plant. The KRW 930 billion project is scheduled for completion in 2027 and will have capacity to manufacture around 30,000 fuel-cell units annually, as well as producing electrolysers used to generate hydrogen.

The physical replacement of an internal-combustion facility with hydrogen technology makes Ulsan a particularly visible example of industrial transition: the factories remain, but what they manufacture is changing.

9. Vyksa, Russia

Vyksa offers a smaller-scale example of how a major industrial employer can become directly involved in urban infrastructure and cultural development.

The city has been associated with metallurgy since the 18th century and remains an important production centre for United Metallurgical Company, or OMK. The company has announced more than RUB 24 billion in investment in urban-development projects between 2024 and 2027. More than ten large projects cover areas including water and heating infrastructure, roads, housing and improvements to public spaces.

OMK is also investing in industrial heritage and tourism. Historic workshops dating from 1765 are being restored as part of the Shukhov Park development. The buildings, covering around 1,600 square metres, are expected to contain museum, educational and creative spaces when they reopen in 2027. The broader Shukhov Park project is scheduled to be fully operational in 2029.

Vyksa therefore represents one version of a wider international trend: industrial companies using investment in heritage, culture and public infrastructure to make traditional manufacturing cities more attractive places to live.

From company towns to industrial ecosystems

These cities are very different, but several common patterns emerge.

The traditional industrial city was often organised around a factory and the jobs it provided. The new model is much broader. Companies increasingly need universities to educate engineers, housing for employees, efficient transport systems, reliable electricity networks, cultural institutions capable of attracting international talent and urban environments where highly skilled workers actually want to live.

At the same time, industrial transformation creates significant risks. Turin shows what happens when production declines faster than a city can diversify, while Eindhoven demonstrates how former industrial infrastructure can become the foundation of a new technology ecosystem.

Perhaps the most important change is that industrial policy and urban policy are increasingly difficult to separate. A semiconductor factory may require thousands of new homes. Electrifying a steel plant can require major changes to the regional power grid. An aerospace cluster creates demand for specialised universities and training centres. And the redevelopment of an abandoned industrial site can transform an entire neighbourhood.

The factory is therefore no longer simply one part of the city. In many of the world's most successful industrial regions, the company, the city and the surrounding innovation ecosystem are increasingly developing together.

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