Die young game cannot bind keys8/31/2023 ![]() ![]() Preston was eight when the overcrowded Govan tenement where his family lived – with its outdoor toilet and backcourt midden (rubbish tip) – was demolished. ![]() “These areas became the priority for investment while the peripheral estates in Glasgow got cheap housing, isolated from the city, and no amenities – resulting in anger and alienation.” Symbols of aspiration in the 1970s, the Plean Street high-rise flats (demolished in 2010) became known as the ‘Towers of Terror’ by the 70s. “The effect was to steer economic investment away from Glasgow, and to ‘redeploy’ population out of the city in a way that led to serious population imbalance in particular the skilled and the young with families left, many to ‘overspill’ areas and new towns,” Collins explains. In one policy document from 1971, entitled The Glasgow Crisis, it was noted that the city was in a socially and economically dangerous position as a result of the policy that amounted to “a very powerful case for drastic action to reverse present trends within the city”. The research based on Scottish Office documents released under the 30-year rule shows new towns such as Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Irvine were populated by Glasgow’s skilled workforce and young families, while the city was left with “the old, the very poor and the almost unemployable”. The effect was to steer economic investment away from Glasgow, and to ‘redeploy’ population out of the city Chik CollinsĪccording to Chik Collins, co-author of the report and professor of applied social sciences at the University of the West of Scotland, new research about “skimming the cream” of the city’s population to rehouse its “best” citizens in new towns, is particularly striking. But the findings are not about eating fewer chips and stopping smoking they are deeply political. The research has been endorsed by some heavy hitters including Sir Harry Burns, formerly the chief medical officer for Scotland, Tom Devine, professor of history at Edinburgh University, and Oxford University geography professor Danny Dorling. In a new report, History, politics and vulnerability: explaining excess mortality, they claim a combination of the historic effects of overcrowding, poor city planning decisions throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s and a democratic deficit – or lack of ability to control decisions that affect their lives – are among reasons why Glaswegians are vulnerable to premature death. ![]() But now, for the first time, researchers from the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) claim to have found hard evidence of a number of key factors that explain it. The mystery of Glasgow’s “sick man of Europe” status started to rear its head more than half a century ago. Photograph: David Newell Smith/The Observer The Gorbals was known as an area for widespread deprivation in Glasgow. Economic advancement alone will not save your life here. ![]() They die from the big killers: cancer, heart disease and strokes, as well as the “despair diseases” of drugs, alcohol and suicide.Īnd though they have a higher chance of dying prematurely if they are poor, deaths across all ages and social classes are 15% greater. Glaswegians have a 30% higher risk of dying before they are 65 (considered a premature death) than people in comparable de-industrialised cities such as Liverpool and Manchester. What he calls fate, some researchers have labelled the “Glasgow effect” – excess mortality that cannot be accounted for by poverty and deprivation alone, and it impacts on everyone in the city. You just take the hand that life deals you and get on with it Robert Preston But you just take the hand that life deals you and get on with it.” I’m the only one left now. “I don’t think that’s unusual,” says Preston. Two brothers died of cancer, one of heart complications, and his sister dropped dead in the street after a brain aneurysm. “I’m the only one left now.” The 76-year-old Preston’s tone, who was born in Govan, icon of Glasgow’s shipbuilding heritage on the River Clyde, is matter of fact. It’s the Glasgow Fair holiday circa 1947 and they are in Dunoon, a coastal town that sits on the Firth of Clyde and a popular “ doon the watter” destination for Glaswegians escaping the urban sprawl. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |