Dynamic Title

I am posting this into the Newbie forum cause this seems nebieish to me...

Ok i have a few files that make up a set of pages

Topbar.php
index.php
info_birmingham.php ( i want the title to match the info page i have a few cities )
footer.php

OK so obviously the <title> is in top bar and i am trying to display the city name in the title which would be gotten from the info_city page

so in topbar i have...

<title><?php echo ("$city"); ?> - <?php echo COMPANY; ?></title>

and then in the info_city page i have at the top of the page

<?php
$city = "Birmingham";
?>

So i guess my question is why does the title not display the city name?

SOMEONE please help i have been pulling my hair out on this
you can see form the URL string that index.php controls all of the pages and the info page has the data for each city
http://www.skbk.com/OaklandCounty/index.php?section=Birmingham

Thanks to anyone that might be able to shed some insight on this for me

Has the info_city script been called yet when you are outputting the title? (If not, then presumably $city is not yet defined?)