What happens when you take people who come from an industrial background stretching back generations, and remove or radically change the industrial landscape ? This book examines the experiences of regions that have lived or are living through these transitions in coal-mining and manufacturing centres located in Turkey, Poland, the UK, Germany, France and Spain. What have been the major changes ? What, if anything, remains of the collective cohesion that was formerly structured by the world of huge industrial enterprises ? What has happened to the built fabric and spaces once dominated by full employment and confident manual workforces ? What transition experiences are held in common between these different countries of a broader Europe ? The studies in this book by leading authorities on identity, urbanisation and social change open the way to a deeper understanding of the intensity of change and of the continuing importance of work in shaping new identities.