May 23 2007

Poorer areas of Glasgow are being left behind by major regeneration projects, according to a report published by think-tank Demos.

Demos spoke with more than 5,000 Glaswegians over a period of 18 months before compiling the report - The Dreaming City: Glasgow 2020 and the power of mass imagination – which has argued that high-profile regeneration projects have led to a division in the city, where affluence and deprivation often lie side by side, and accused city leaders of running out of ideas.

The head of Demos’ self build cities programme, Melissa Mean, said: “City leaders are running on empty in terms of ideas to sustain the urban renaissance. When every city has commissioned a celebrity architect and pedestrianised a cultural quarter, distinctiveness is reduced to a formula… cities need to open up to the mass imagination of their citizens.”

Glasgow City Council has been highly critical of the study, which they partially funded, dismissing it as “nothing less than an insult to the many Glaswegians who gave up their time to take part,” and claimed that “London-based academics” had no perspective on the true needs and achievements of the city.

Post your comments