Advances turned an old city around (6)

I believe the answer is:

runups

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'advances' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'turned an old city around' is the wordplay.
'turned' becomes 'spun' (I've seen this before).
'an old city' becomes 'ur' (ancient city state).
'around' says the letters should be written backwards.
'spun'+'ur'='spunur'
'spunur' reversed gives 'RUNUPS'.

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