Today, Innsbruck is known as a business centre primarily for its university, hospital, administration and tourism. This was not always the case. The first early form of industrialisation began to develop in Innsbruck in the 15th century. Bell and weapon founders such as the Löfflers set up factories in Hötting, Mühlau and Dreiheiligen, which were among the leading factories of their time. Industry not only changed the rules of the social game with the influx of new workers and their families, it also had an impact on the appearance of Innsbruck. The workers, unlike the farmers, were not the subjects of any master. Capital from outside came into the city. Houses and churches were built. The large workshops changed the smell and sound of the city. The smelting works were noisy, the smoke from the furnaces polluted the air.

The second wave of industrialisation came late in Innsbruck compared to other European regions. Members of the lesser nobility invested the money they had received after 1848 as compensation for their land as part of the land relief in industry and business. Farmers without land travelled from the surrounding area to Innsbruck to find work. In 1838, the spinning machine arrived in Pradl over the Arlberg via the Dornbirn company Herrburger & Rhomberg. H&R had acquired a plot of land on the Sillgründe. Thanks to the river's water power, the site was ideal for the heavy machinery used in the textile industry. More than 20 companies used the Sill Canal around 1900, and the noise and exhaust fumes from the engines were hell for the neighbours, as a newspaper article from 1912 shows:

„Entrüstung ruft bei den Bewohnern des nächst dem Hauptbahnhofe gelegenen Stadtteiles der seit einiger Zeit in der hibler´schen Feigenkaffeefabrik aufgestellte Explosionsmotor hervor. Der Lärm, welchen diese Maschine fast den ganzen Tag ununterbrochen verbreitet, stört die ganz Umgebung in der empfindlichsten Weise und muß die umliegenden Wohnungen entwerten. In den am Bahnhofplatze liegenden Hotels sind die früher so gesuchten und beliebten Gartenzimmer kaum mehr zu vermieten. Noch schlimmer als der ruhestörende Lärm aber ist der Qualm und Gestank der neuen Maschine…“

Just like 400 years earlier, the Second Industrial Revolution changed the city forever. Neighbourhoods such as Pradl and Wilten grew rapidly. While the new wealthy business class had villas built in Wilten, Pradl and Saggen and middle-class employees lived in apartment blocks in the same neighbourhoods, the workers were housed in workers' hostels and mass accommodation.

After the revolutionary year of 1848 and the new circumstances, the everyday lives of many Innsbruck residents became even more bourgeois. Innsbruck experienced the kind of gentrification that can be observed today in trendy urban neighbourhoods such as Prenzlauer Berg in Berlin. In one of his texts, the Innsbruck writer Josef Leitgeb tells us how people experienced the urbanisation of the formerly rural area:

„…viel fremdes, billig gekleidetes Volk, in wachsenden Wohnblocks zusammengedrängt, morgens, mittags und abends die Straßen füllend, wenn es zur Arbeit ging oder von ihr kam, aus Werkstätten, Läden, Fabriken, vom Bahndienst, die Gesichter oft blaß und vorzeitig alternd, in Haltung, Sprache und Kleidung nichts Persönliches mehr, sondern ein Allgemeines, massenhaft Wiederholtes und Wiederholbares: städtischer Arbeitsmensch. Bahnhof und Gaswerk erschienen als Kern dieser neuen, unsäglich fremden Landschaft.“

The change from rural life in the village to the city involved more than just a change of location. While the landlord in the countryside was still the master of the private lives of his farmhands and maidservants and was able to determine their lifestyles up to the point of sexuality by releasing them for marriage, they were now at least somewhat freer individually. Beda Weber wrote about this in 1851:

„Their social circles are without constraint, and there is a distinctly metropolitan flavour that is not so easy to find elsewhere in Tyrol."

The hitherto unknown phenomenon of leisure time emerged and, together with disposable income, favoured hobbies for a larger number of people. Clubs of all kinds emerged. Parks such as the English Garden at Ambras Castle were no longer exclusively accessible to the aristocracy, but served as recreational areas for the general public. New green spaces such as Rapoldipark and Waltherpark were created.

The existing rifts between the city and the surrounding area deepened, which can still be seen to this day. Anyone travelling from the university city of Innsbruck to one of the nearby side valleys will find a completely different world. Starting with the spoken dialect, the Stubai Valley, just a few kilometres south of Innsbruck, is very different from the provincial capital, not to mention the more distant side valleys such as the Ötztal in the west or the Zillertal in the east of Tyrol.