To demonstrate this I want to look at how Mannheim has become an influential centre for music business in Germany, which has simultaneously attracted small design and tech start ups. It was not at the level of municipal government that music was used as an ‘image regeneration’ tool for a declining industrial centre, it was the involvement of a small network of local musicians and producers opening up the potential for investment. In the early 90s, a group of Mannheim-based musicians grouped around lead singer Xavier Naidoo – now one of Germany’s leading names in pop music – formed the music collective Söhne Mannheims (Sons of Mannheim).