Glasgow - Space and Place

• Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland with a population of 1,600,000 people.
• In the 19th and 20th centuries, Glasgow built over 20% of the world’s ships.
• At its peak shipbuilding employed 70,000 people in Glasgow in the early 20th Century.
• Between 1961-1981, 140,000 jobs were lost in Glasgow. Partly due to a downward multiplier effect.
• Social housing blocks had been built in the 1960s in places like Gorbals to replace the Victorian tenement slums. However, they were poorly designed and used cheap materials.
• 1/3 of population left between 1961-1981 due to the lack of jobs/poor housing and high crime rates.
• In 1983, Glasgow District Council launched the campaign ‘Glasgow’s miles better’. It featured ‘Mr Happy’ from the Mr Men series as its logo.
• Glasgow Garden festival in 1988 was a 5-month long exhibition with events and a theme park.
• Glasgow was the first UK city to win the European Capital of Culture in 1990.
• The derelict Queens Dock in the city centre was converted into the SEC (Scottish Exhibition Centre) in 1985. Later expanded to build the SEC Armadillo in 1997 and the Ovo Hydro in 2013. The SEC campus supports 5,000 jobs directly/indirectly and brings in over £350 million to Glasgow’s economy.
• People Make Glasgow Campaign launched in 2013 to create a different perception of Glasgow.
• Barclays Campus in Glasgow opened in 2021 giving out more than 5,000 jobs.
• Glasgow’s miles Better in 1983 was largely a marketing campaign; it was cheap (£150,000) and used existing infrastructure.
• Struthers Advertising (Private marketing company) used the Mr Happy logo and created promotional material.
• 1981: Glasgow city region – 17% unemployed

  2021: Glasgow city region – 5% unemployed