This is a tense time for Swansea. Like its four fellow shortlisted cities – Coventry, Paisley, Stoke and Sunderland – it awaits a crucial verdict on Thursday, when Britain finds out who is to wear the coveted crown of UK City of Culture in 2021.

After months of campaigning, and as Hull’s year in the limelight dims, the competing teams are all nervous. But for Swansea in particular this could be about to get personal. For the city was shortlisted last time around and is understandably reluctant to accept the bridesmaid’s role twice in a row.

“Of course we still want to win and think we can but we also don’t want to fall off a cliff if we don’t,” said Tracey McNulty, who has co-ordinated Swansea’s strategy. “We have all enjoyed making it clear that culture is not just something we think about once we have taken care of ‘the important stuff’. We put a lot of thought into what a culture plan means.”

With one of Britain’s longest expanses of sand and sea, dramatically backed, this weekend at least, by dark hills in a wintry sunlight , it is hard to see why Swansea’s appeal has historically been neglected. Age-old rivalries and prejudices come into it, of course. Bristol has often looked down on its Welsh competitor ports, while Cardiff, as the Welsh capital, has grabbed more attention. But the bigger picture is the industrial decline and loss of identity that Swansea has suffered.

“There is a strong sense of contrast here between the run-down areas and the pretty coastline,” said McNulty. “We have areas of great need here. Some places that are only a mile or so apart have a seven-year gap in life expectancy.”

Most of the boarding houses and hotels that line the beachfront, leading up to the quaintness of the Mumbles and then on to the outstanding natural beauty of the Gower peninsula, look neither sweetly old-fashioned nor pleasantly modernised. Instead, a jumble of mock-Tudor beams and 1970s glazing present a motley face to the sea.

One of Swansea’s most famous natives, the poet Dylan Thomas, once wrote of his “ugly, lovely town … crawling, sprawling … by the side of a long and splendid curving shore”, and the city faced a similarly mixed reaction when it put itself forward again as a major cultural contender.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Dylan Thomas centre, commemorating the Swansea poet, is one of the attractions the city hopes will help win the cultural accolade. Photograph: Hulton Deutsch/Corbis via Getty Images

A string of foundries and a stream of polluting waste on the banks of the river Tawe were the legacy of the copper industry in the 19th century. But Swansea has far from shaken off signs of neglect. When universal credit gradually replaces welfare benefits this month, the council leader has warned that thousands of residents “will be plunged into debt”.

The bid team were clear about the scale of change required. “It is right in front of us: there are massive inequalities,” said McNulty. “We want to improve access to culture, access to jobs, even access to transport and mobile phone signals in some areas. We want to build bridges, metaphorically and literally.”

And she does believe there is fresh hope. Aside from the publicity created by the City of Culture bid, the annual international arts festival and the growing draw of the local undergraduate scene, Swansea is now the focus of several major redevelopment schemes.

“After the last bid we needed to regroup and to learn,” said McNulty, who is also head of cultural services for the city council. “We knew we had to demonstrate what has changed. Then suddenly a whole load of large-scale initiatives came up, including the city centre regeneration and ongoing plans for the world’s first tidal lagoon.”

The lagoon, if it comes, will be formed by a curved breakwater constructed out at sea to house a bank of hydro turbines that will generate electricity by harnessing the bay’s especially impressive tides.

There is also excitable talk of a high-tech cable car system that would swing visitors from one hill to another, while, as many football fans will know, Swansea City’s Liberty stadium is home to the only Premier League team in Wales. Indeed, to show their support for the bid, last week several of Swansea’s players indulged in a promotional game of cultural charades for the cameras.

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If the 2021 title does go to Swansea, the £3m Heritage Lottery Fund grant would be spent building on the work done so far in the smart maritime quarter emerging around the Tawe basin, where there is already a jaunty look to the shops and restaurants. A new bar called The Swigg, named after a buoy out in the bay, even offers an unexpected delicacy: Welsh tapas.

Behind the revamped wharfside warehouses is the museum zone. The modern National Waterfront Museum sets out the Welsh seafaring story and charts the rise and fall of the merchant class in the surrounding city with map displays, model boats and interactive displays. But the newest jewel in the city’s cultural offer is the Glynn Vivian art gallery, which re-opened a year ago after an expensive redesign.

The City of Culture judges sent to Swansea by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport last month will no doubt also have followed in the footsteps of cultural pilgrims to the city by paying their respects to its late, great bard. Entry to the Dylan Thomas centre includes a free exhibition called Love the Words which features the voice of the actor Richard Burton, as well as recordings of Thomas himself. There are also displays that detail his schoolboy sporting prowess and some pages from his teenage notebooks.

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Across the green from the river basin stands the museum with perhaps the least pretensions and the most individuality. Swansea museum is the oldest in Wales and is a lucky dip of curios, including an Egyptian mummy and a 17th-century Flemish masterpiece by Jacob Jordaens, recently discovered in the storeroom.

There is also an annex tramshed which commemorates the street tram that once ran along the edge of the bay to Mumbles pier, while in the summer months there are maritime exhibits in the dock, including three boats.

Perversely, though, as McNulty’s team recognised from the outset, it is not just Swansea’s attractive achievements, but the nature of its cultural lack which may either clinch the City of Culture deal for them this Thursday, or not.

“It is difficult. All of the cities on the shortlist have a similar story to tell,” she said.

“We each have problematic relations to a bigger city nearby, a manufacturing past and several were heavily damaged during the second world war. Swansea had a three-night blitz that changed the city’s nature completely.”

Competition for the UK title is likely to grow after last week’s EU ruling that, post-Brexit, British cities will no longer qualify for European City of Culture status in 2023. But at this late stage, Swansea and its rivals can only put their faith in the judges – and in the belief that, if they fail, their bids have at least reminded the rest of Britain of their existence.

City of Culture contenders

Coventry The bookies’ favourite. Former heart of the motor industry. A bombing raid in November 1940 destroyed much of the city and killed 550. The ruined cathedral remains next to Basil Spence’s replacement. “A once in a lifetime opportunity for Coventry to tell its story of reinvention, of resilience, of peace and reconciliation,” said Laura McMillan, bid team manager. 7/4 at Ladbrokes. Swansea is 10/1

Stoke-on-Trent Ceramics are still a tourist draw but the city suffers from the closure of big potteries and mines. “City of Culture is not just for celebrating what you’ve got now but asking how do you build a credible future,” said Susan Clarke, creative programme director for the bid. Hashtag ”Stoke’s no joke”. 3/1

Paisley Weaving capital of the 18th and 19th centuries. According to Scottish government figures the most deprived area in the country is the city’s Ferguslie Park estate. “The bid is part of a wider plan to transform the town’s fortunes using our unique cultural and heritage story,” said bid director Jean Cameron. 3/1

Sunderland World’s shipbuilding capital a century ago. Its last shipyard closed in 1988, but its Nissan plant builds “more cars than Italy”. Bid themes are “light”, “inventiveness” and “friendship”on an “astonishing scale”. Bid director Rebecca Ball said: “A fantastic opportunity to engage people about the kind of cultural life they want.” 4/1