For years, when people have inquired where I'm from, and I've replied “Wolverhampton”, and they've responded “where's that?”, and I've retorted “near Birmingham”, and they've grunted something along the lines of “ughh”, but at the same time revealed that they have never actually visited the place, I've always remarked: “Well, it is Britain's second city, you know.”

But last week, having had this exchange three times in as many days, I found myself asking a number of fundamental questions. They included: What does it actually mean to be a country's “second city”? What's the criteria and does Birmingham actually deserve the title?

The first surprise was to discover that there's no official mechanism behind the accolade. Different cities lay claim to it according to factors ranging from size to economic, political or cultural clout and, historically, the title has been attached in the UK to Glasgow and Dublin. In fact, Birmingham's claim is relatively recent, dating to the early 20th century.

The second surprise was to discover that Brum's claim is looking increasingly tenuous, with a poll last year finding that almost half of Brits believe Manchester to be the most important city after London, and another survey of leading chief executives finding that Manchester beats Birmingham when it comes to quality of life, shopping, hotels, availability of office space, recruitment, car parking and transportation. Incredibly, some even challenge Brum's claim in terms of size, pointing out that the West Midlands conurbation and the Greater Manchester urban area have similar populations.

Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that these revelations were traumatic. When you grow up in the West Midlands, Bimingham's second-city status becomes a tenet of your world view and an important aspect of your self-esteem.

Learning that it might not be set in stone was a shock that ranked alongside discovering that John Major had had a four-year affair with Edwina Currie, and that Bono does not, as I thought, sing “I have scaled these silly walls”, in I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, but “I have scaled these city walls”.And my initial response was, as is often the case with bad news, one of denial. After all, Brum is home to two of our greatest living novelists, David Lodge and Jonathan Coe. The city has its own symphony orchestra, ballet company, opera company, school of acting and signature dish (the Balti). The new Selfridges building is comparable to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. And the tap water is the best tasting in Britain - being piped in from the Elan Valley in Wales. However, all this gloating left an unpleasant aftertaste, which even Brum's bostin' water would have struggled to wash away. In truth, Jonathan Coe actually lives in London. The orchestra, ballet company and so on are all very good, but they don't give the city a distinctive voice in the way that New Order and Oasis have done so for Manchester. “Balti” actually means “bucket”, which conveys the quality of the cuisine. The Selfridges building is stunning, but culturally vacuous. Even as a retail experience it doesn't quite work: whenever I go there, it seems to be full of people looking at the price tags and laughing uproariously, as if told a joke by Jasper Carrott.

And I know the city is on the cusp of a makeover, with a £600 million “new” New Street station and a £193 million library on the way, but the city has had more makeovers than Madonna. While it will be a relief that rail travellers will no longer have to negotiate four lanes of traffic on exiting the station, the depressing fact is that at the end of it Birmingham will still be encircled by gridlocked motorways, spattered with grey industrial estates and its most notable contribution to national culture will still be UB40. Moreover, its people will still speak in an accent that routinely tops polls of Britain's worst accent.

As it happens, I like the way Brummies speak - it is warm and amusing, with a 2006 survey finding it is the funniest accent for joke-telling. You could get Ozzy Osbourne to front a charity campaign for Darfur and you'd still laugh - there's something irresistibly and inherently self-deprecating about the Brummie drawl.

But the problem is that this relentless selfdeprecation, an essential part of Birmingham's charm, has begun to corrode the city's selfesteem. It is telling that one of the main internet sites celebrating the city is called “Birmingham: It's Not S**t”, that someone once wrote a guidebook entitled Birmingham is Not a Boring City and that the remark “it ain't as bad as it used to be” is uttered so often by locals that it seems to have become a motto. I actually disagree with that sentiment: I think things have got worse.

When I was growing up in the shadow of Brummagem, as it is known to locals, the city bid for the 1992 Olympics against the likes of Paris and Barcelona and seemed to be taken seriously. But it would be laughable for it to submit such a bid now, and it says something about how its ambitions have shrunk that Marketing Birmingham mentions the forthcoming Conservative Party Conference as a highlight of forthcoming events. The last Tory conference was in Blackpool, for God's sake.

It pains me to say it, but not only can Birmingham no longer realistically claim to be more important than Manchester, but I suspect it lies some way behind Glasgow and Edinburgh too. Tastiest tap water in Britain, though.

Sathnam@thetimes.co.uk

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