Juan Vogel
Well-known member
I've been mildly interested in the decline of Glasgow and indeed Liverpool for a while, whilst never really looking into the issue in any great detail but by chance a podcast I listened to on my commute today interviewed some guy about his new book, which has a chapter on Glasgow's decline. See below for links to the podcast and then the book.
His view seems to largely accept what I assume is the usual British consensus of industrial decline combined with poor industrial strategy + commercial decline of the great western port cities. He also adds in what I assume is more original and that is that the above was aggravated by housing policy, in that dealing with the tenements issue broke up tight knit social structures at exactly the wrong time, by destroying the social capital of the working classes of Glasgow at their most economically vulnerable, thus entrenching the decline/impact on the same people.
Of course none of this actually points to a universal solution - although one could posit that a different housing strategy - one that kept the social groups together in a more coherent way would address that.
https://www.piie.com/experts/peters...sode-120-extreme-trade-rise-and-fall-glasgows
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1114982/extreme-economies/9781784163259.html
So what other options are there and what is the best/last moment where we can "fix" Glasgow?
His view seems to largely accept what I assume is the usual British consensus of industrial decline combined with poor industrial strategy + commercial decline of the great western port cities. He also adds in what I assume is more original and that is that the above was aggravated by housing policy, in that dealing with the tenements issue broke up tight knit social structures at exactly the wrong time, by destroying the social capital of the working classes of Glasgow at their most economically vulnerable, thus entrenching the decline/impact on the same people.
Of course none of this actually points to a universal solution - although one could posit that a different housing strategy - one that kept the social groups together in a more coherent way would address that.
https://www.piie.com/experts/peters...sode-120-extreme-trade-rise-and-fall-glasgows
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1114982/extreme-economies/9781784163259.html
So what other options are there and what is the best/last moment where we can "fix" Glasgow?