Glaswegian

Hi Folks, I was only recently made aware of this documentary and felt more than a mite appalled by the thought of Glasgow being portrayed in an overtly negative way. I'll be up front about it....I was born and raised in Glasgow, and I currently live and work in the city so my colours are pretty much nailed to the mast. That isn't to say my view is a blinkered one, far from it. I grew up in an area of the city infamous for violence, depravation and organised crime. Another admission: I haven't seen the documentary. I don't know what ideas they put forward or how they go about explaining them. Despite this, I think I can discuss it with a degree of cynicism. Why? Well, the title is a good start. This strikes me very much as a title that was begging for a film. Imagine it if you will...a film crew turns up on the mean streets of Govan....day 1...."The Most Violent City In The Developed World, Take 1"...a wee old lady walks by and asks if they're making a television programme...a mother pushes her pram along the street....people go about their business. Hardly shocking stuff is it? What I'm saying folks is that when you start off making a documentary with a set agenda you are DUTY BOUND to fulfil it. Whatever else the evidence may suggest. So with a title like that, the integrity of the film must be in question. Glasgow has a gang violence problem. It has a knife crime problem. It has problems with poverty and substance abuse. In short, it has the same sort of problems that any city does. What is different, we are told, is that Glasgow has a disproportionate level of all of these problems in relation to its size. The figures seem to back this up. But the figures are STUPID. That's right, stupid, and I'll tell you why. OFFICIALLY, Glasgow is a city of around 550,000 people. Crime figures and percentages relate only to this demographic. There is, however, a long-standing argument concerning boundaries around our city. Greater Glasgow is an urban area of over a million people. The outlying and mainly salubrious areas of Greater Glasgow benefit from their association with the city in terms of public services such as police, housing, roads etc. BUT they retain their status as villages or towns because it means that they pay less tax. This problem is also a huge influence on crime statistics. Many leafy, relatively crime-free areas just outside the city limits are not considered when these figures are compiled, leading to a negatively skewed impression of crime levels in Glasgow. This is not to say it doesn't exist...of course it does. But the numbers that could lead one to conclude that Glasgow is the "most violent city in the developed world" are dubious at best. In other areas of the UK these outlying areas were annexed long ago and it's this beureaucratic anomaly that taints pretty much any statistics concerning the city that you care to mention. So, rant over. One of you mentioned how friends had travelled in the UK and thought Glasgow was the only place that they felt afraid. I'm agog. Seriously. Did they visit London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester et al? Glasgow is one of the foremost Victorian cities in Europe. A wander around Glasgow City Centre will inevitably have you looking upwards at the magnificent architecture. It's a city of ingenuity, art and culture and it's currently experiencing a renaissance. Don't let scaremongering, agenda-laden, documentary-makers put you off. I visited New York and didn't hang around anywhere that I knew would get me dead....same applies when you come here. Anywhere a tourist might visit is safe as houses. We're a friendly lot. We LIKE it when we see tourists here. We're very keen to help. Honestly! We won't eat your children (unless they're strawberry flavoured). "Here's tae us. Wha's like us? Gye few, and they're aw deid!"