Read about this controversial study undertook by thinktank demos on my bus journey to uni today in the Herald Newspaper. Predicting how Glasgow could be in 2020 if certain measures were taken. There was a diversity of visions, to me this one below stood out, based on my experiences as a Glaswegian. Indeed, i would say that most of this stuff has come to pass already here. I experience it every day living in a poverty striken scheme and then travelling to the bourgouise west end. The amount of people that go to Glasgow University who have never gone beyond the west end is astounding. The west end really is a horrible bourgiouse bubble but i wont go into rant mode today…
http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1417677.0.0.php
Hard Glasgow is a quiet place. “Apart from the constant growl from police helicopters swirling overhead,” said Mr Hassan. It might, however, appeal to some more than Two-Speed Glasgow. Another caricature, this time of Glasgow’s notorious social divide.
“By 2020 economic and social divisions are so entrenched that Glasgow has become two cities living side by side in blissful ignorance of one another,” Mr Hassan wrote. “One half believes that everyone is middle class now’ while the other half is bedded down in social housing estates, existing in temporary jobs or on benefits. Both halves believe that they represent the majority experience of living in the city.
“With social mobility at an all time low, people are born in the same side as they die. There are little to no movements between the two cities and the politics of Glasgow are entirely conducted around the values of the richer half. The excluded have by-and-large opted out of voting, politics and notions of citizenship.
Something that made me laugh out loud on the bus had to be this quote:
Football is no longer so important – one sport among many. Glasgow has lost the chip on its shoulder, making up with Edinburgh and reaching peace with the wider world. It has even taken the step of apologising for its role in the British Empire, and brought an elderly but still lively Bill Clinton to the city to chair a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to mend sectarian disputes.”
and then this quality statement lol:
There isn’t much room for sectarianism in another imagined city of 2020. That’s Kaleidescope Glasgow, where so many newcomers, even the English are welcome, have arrived that Old Firm rivalries are long gone – Partick Thistle is the top team.
lol I wish!
apparently this report cost £200k lol funded by Glasgow City Council and it pokes fun out of them.
You’ve gotta love the old academic fraternity with the audicity they have with how they justify thier careers! Still id rather give them money to come up with funny reports rather than Glasgow City Council who squander money on zilch…
