But local high streets in neighbouring Black Country towns have seen precious little collateral benefit.
Alcohol-free zones across Birmingham and the Black Country are working, according to West Midlands Police.
The West Midlands police force area includes Birmingham, Solihull, the Black Country and Coventry.
Ian Johnson is a project leader for the Black Country Learning Academy which is among the winners.
About 120 schools were closed across Birmingham and the Black Country after heavy snow falls over the weekend.
BBC: Wolverhampton school pupils stranded in Arran set for home
Black Country Coroner Robin Balmain opened and adjourned an inquest on 28 June.
BBC: Walsall Manor hospital sacks four staff after death of man
James Green, 18, was caught driving a Volkswagen Golf at 116mph on a 40mph road in the Black Country last July.
BBC: Green was said to be genuinely remorseful and embarrassed
Samantha Jennings, 26, from Kingswinford in the Black Country, died at the scene in Cookley in the early hours of Saturday morning.
They have banned the Black Country band's song from their Christmas playlist.
BBC: NEWS | UK | England | Manchester | Slade slashed from airport playlist
Police said the tickets, on services across Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country, also warned offenders about jail sentences they could face.
Several town centres in the Black Country are also Alcohol Restricted Areas.
It follows the JCB Academy in Staffordshire, which opened in 2010, and the Black Country UTC, sponsored by Siemens, which opened in 2011.
Mr Twigg called for regional versions of the City Challenges that ran in London, Manchester and the Black Country from 2008 to 2011.
The M6 Toll road, which aims to alleviate the increasing congestion on the M6 through Birmingham and the Black Country, opened in 2003.
Cable group Virgin Media has announced plans to close a customer service department in the Black Country with the loss of 322 jobs.
The introduction of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake and Kightly at half-time breathed new life into the home side as rain began to fall in the Black Country.
Self-employed electrician Tony Levy from Wednesfield in the Black Country says that at 61 he's too old to be employed but too young to retire.
As well as improving the NHS in Sandwell, the hospital would "also act as a significant catalyst for regeneration in the Black Country, " he said.
He's originally from Dudley in the Black Country and got his foot in the door at BRMB Radio in Birmingham when he was still a teenager.
The UK Border Agency has revoked the licence of a Black Country college, meaning dozens of international students may no longer be eligible to study there.
BBC: Bilston Community college loses foreign student licence
While the monied hob-nobbed around cosmopolitan London, the Black Country got grimy producing the country's wealth, and perhaps as a consequence, its citizens were regarded as dull.
In a predominantly black country, which Nigeria is, the election of a black man, one would think it doesn't have quite so much meaning but evidently it does.
The West Midlands Construction UTC in Bloxwich is scheduled to open in 2014, on the same site as the existing Black Country UTC, at the former Sneyd Community School.
The enterprise zones previously announced were: Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Derby, Nottingham, the Black Country, the Tees Valley, the West of England and the North East.
Meantime their Black Country counterparts, chaired by the managing director of Hadley Industries Stewart Towe, chose a 226 acre site on the north eastern outskirts of Wolverhampton near the M54.
The federation figures include Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country as well as the counties of Staffordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and unitary authorities of Herefordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Telford and Wrekin and Shropshire.
Dudley Council said the decision to freeze council tax meant that residents would continue to pay the lowest rates in the Black Country and the second lowest in the West Midlands.
The Black Country LEP, The Association of Black Country Authorities (ABCA) and the Black Country Chamber of Commerce have been lobbying for better use of the road to help with network congestion.
George Osborne has confirmed plans for a new superhospital for the Black Country, the extension of ultra-fast broadband to Coventry and the promise of major investment in the region's schools and motorways.
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