Glasgow 1960s and what was called ‘redevelopment’

[escotregen]

I was this week reminded of this little gem of a film from the Scottish Screen archive on 1960s and 1970s Glasgow, and what is referred to as ‘redevelopment of the city’.

One indelible impression is of the destruction of much of the perfectly reusable existing tenement stock. In one scene the future disaster of high rise flats is already looming over the destruction of the older housing. The narrator actually acclaims the destruction of over 50,000 of these homes in the 60s, and that a further 75,000 were to be further doomed.

The confirmation of this as tragedy lies in how the later community based housing associations of the old city areas rescued and rehabilitated much of the surviving stock. That rescued stock continues to survive to this day having outlived most of the awful high rise disasters (good work by the GHA on the expeditious demolition of those). In another telling scene the narrator tells us that at Pollock the ground ‘previously occupied by villas’ was given over to system-built ‘medium rise’ blocks of apartments ‘so that many more people could enjoy the vista’. Was that ever progress, or perhaps the triumph of a certain type of ideological municipalism?

Another almost painful scene is the heart being physically gouged out of one of the finest Victorian Britain junctions at Charing Cross – to make way for the construction of the Kingston bridge. Oh Dear!

The narrator refers to Charing Cross as a ‘familiar landmark’, and, over an overview of its ongoing destruction, reassures the viewer in a bureaucratic deterministic way that, “But Glasgow’s future is planned out in the heads of Planners. Stage by stage modeled in balsa and plastic presented to the public and their representatives argued and approved.

Chilling stuff that could ne argued as reminding of the constant need for leaning, proportion, humility – and perhaps a healthy scepticism of ‘the experts’, and of would-be political leaders?
https://vimeo.com/12634222

[Bridie]

Good film.
Looking at it I was swayed by the argument that most of the tenements needed demolishing. In my memory a lot of the inhabitants were glad to see the back of them. The M8's a different story and as you say that's a hell of a vivid picture of destruction and mayhem at Charing X - such a shame and it will always be lamented.

On the other thread where I mentioned that I had read Lost Glasgow by Carol Foreman - she also details ( in nearly every chapter) the amount of regal and splendid buildings that have been destroyed over the many decades of Glasgow's history.
Why did this happen?
Was it because Glasgow had such an abundance of architecture that they the planners (or destructors) became complacent in their need to redevelop or is it that more people, especially in the last forty odd years, have really started to appreciate them?

[dazza]

Was it because Glasgow had such an abundance of architecture that they the planners (or destructors) became complacent in their need to redevelop or is it that more people, especially in the last forty odd years, have really started to appreciate them?

Whenever I see any colour footage or photographs of Glasgow prior to this "redevelopment", I'm always struck by how dark and filthy everything looks due to decades of industrial grime and chimney soot. Perhaps it was easier to be indiscriminate in a city where everything had become blackened and dulled?
It's a shame they hadn't thought to start cleaning the buildings at the first stage of regeneration, as they may have realised just what was lurking beneath. Then again, they probably didn't care anyway.

[escotregen]

Bridie two points. First was that most folk given the choice between the festering slum and the offer of a 'new hoose in the schemes' would take the latter. No one offered them any vision or possibility of what could be done by way of rehabilitating the existing stock, until the community based housing association movement emerged. By the late 1980s virtually no one left in the older areas, once the housing association programmes were under way, were interested in moving to the schemes. In the latter stages of still-being-built Easterhouse and the 'newer' schemes like Darnley and Summerston, the housing was becoming what the officials pronounced as hard-to-let.

On the second aspect of 'why did it happen', there's many a long night in the pubs spent on that one. There's probably a rough consensus now that it was down to a combination of history and contemporary factors. The UK was still in its 'heroic delusions' post WW2 state. There was strong cross-party and popular belief in big, top-down, government directed solutions (after all, said folks, it was that the won the war). Local and central government was through that period able to plan on big funding from an increasingly higher tax base.

Specifically in Glasgow the Corporation was literally obsessed with retaining as much of a falling populations as possible. So extending cheap, mass production line new housing to the very limits of (and beyond?) the city boundaries was gone for. Meantime, there was from the Scottish Office what the Glasgow-victimhood people called an 'anti-Glasgow' conspiracy. These people were convinced that the Scottish Government was dead set against Glasgow and wanted it reduced and weakened; hence the New Towns. Personally I have no doubt in siding with the other version - that the 'experts' and the well intentioned (but wrong) planners of the day saw a reduction of Glasgow's densely packed population as a major tool in addressing the city's clearly worsening decline on almost every measure. That meant prioritisation of development for the New Towns.

No matter, however, how rational or well-intentioned the Scottish Office's intentions may have been, they added to the Glasgow City Fathers' determination about retaining population through mass new housing.

The other major factor was the almost ideological beliefs and worldviews of the various contending professions: planners; architects; 'Whitehall' civil servants; municipalists etc. Almost everything the majority of these various contenders came out with made for a big urban clearance, removal and demolition, for example; housing design and system building techniques; high rise flats; planners concepts of masterplanning; a collectivist municipal mindset that saw the public as passive subjects recipients. Personally I also wonder to what extent the likes of architects and planners were influenced by visits to mainland European cities that had been devasted by WW2. They quite possibly were much impressed by the gargantuan efforts at physical renewal in many such cities - and came back thinking we could do it here.

Anyhows, that is just a brief (believe it or not) skim across just some of the more prominent factors.

[SomeRandomBint]

Cracking film.

What i find interesting is that this Glasgow citizen who was born in 1980 is now watching all those areas being redeveloped again, to return them to low level, tenement style homes. Sitting watching the film going "that's gone... that's gone... they're going...". I guess they thought they knew what they were doing at the time...

Had to laugh at the final shot though, on a bridge going nowhere. "To Be Continued.."? Eh, actually... a lot of it wasn't!

[Bridie]

escotregen - It is a very interesting, personal ( to a Weegie) and a huge topic.
I remember being about twelve years old in and around when Charing X, Cowcaddens etc was being redeveloped and the Clyde Tunnel constructed and looking down at the sites from the top of a bus wondering what would disappear next.
Also, a close family member was an enthusiastic and newly qualified architect at the time and was full of the joys of the new build and the new Glasgow.

As SomeRandonbint says it would appear that Glasgow has always had major changes (and mistakes) in it's redevelopment over the centuries.
Wonder how other towns and cities have coped with a rising population, old housing stock and new designs over the decades?
Did they make better decisions?

[escotregen]

Bridie a couple of responses to your latter question.

Firstly, a couple of years ago I reviewed a generally awful book by an Harvard prof called ' Triumph of the City'. Although it was a generally awful book full of USA-style free-market nonsense, the author did argue very persuasivly that the biggest mistake most urban redevelopment and regeneration decision-makers made across the world was the destruction of local housing markets and the mass provision of city-owned, cheaply built, cheaply rented housing. Sounds familiar?

Secondly, I was one of the organisors of a study trip to Liverpool and Manchester in the mid noughties we called 'A Tale of Two Cities'. Having witnessed the so-called redevelopment of Glasgow and the aftermath at close quarters, I was totally taken aback at the devastation of Liverpool. I'm pretty sure that they went even further (certainly on a bigger scale) than Glasgow did. I'm sure that the Glasgow City Cooncillors at the time would have been envious of the manic area-clearances and construction of motorways and 'urban highways' across Liverpool. It tuned out of course that the projected growth of Liverpool and consequent huge traffic increases never came about. So they have spent most of the last couple of decades in dismantling that system.

Fortunately, like Glasgow, Liverpool had heroic community activists along with committed professionals to do the fighting back. I was lucky enough to have participated in the recent 'Velocity' Talk at The Lighthouse where we heard of how 'Art in the Community' was part of the rescue of an entire community from the tender mercies of England's 'Housing Renewal Programme' (which was yet another example of a programme with mega 'expert' thinking gone wrong).
http://www.thelighthouse.co.uk/create/event/velocity-talks-2up-2down

[SomeRandomBint]

I think the comment about the UK as a whole still riding the post-war enthusiasm is quite accurate. I think the failure of a lot of the redevelopment of Glasgow comes down to two things - firstly, there was a bunch of politicians with money and power and a drive to make their city the best, coupled with a group of architects and planners drunk of the excitement of new materials, designs and ideas of city living. Secondly, there was a population of Glaswegians, many living in poor quality housing stock, who were excited by the idea of modern living with all the conveniences.

What seems quite clear is that, like many concepts in the post war years, the didn't seem to be much thought given to longevity or the bigger picture. No one predicted the fact that brutalism would date so quickly. Nor did the powers that be consider the impact on communities of having so many people living so close to each other in such massive numbers. No one realised how anonymous people would become - apart from some older people who were probably only complaining because they didn't like change. But a lot of what makes good town planning decisions now is as a result of the mistakes made in so many cities around the country back then. You live and learn, as they say.

Looking back, we can all see just how bloody stupid it was - only now that we've lost a lot of our city can we realise what a mess they made. But then, I don't remember Glasgow before the M8. I suppose I don't know how I'd feel if things had been done differently. I do wish Charing Cross hadn't been so massively bulldozed though - my husband knew nothing of Glasgow before we moved here and every time we walk past the MItchell he complains about the idiots who decided to put a motorway RIGHT past it. But then, as I keep pointing out, it might be noisy and dirty, but you can stand on the other side of it and actually SEE the building now.

[escotregen]

SomeRand..., on Charing Cross. One of my earliest memories as a very young kid was travelling with my Mum and neighbour and her son (on the tram!) to do some of their 'big shopping' in the big shops and stores in and around Charing Cross and Cowcaddens. I can recall many large shops and even something like Department stores (complete with their own Santa's Grottos at Christmas). It was always busy, always an exciting place for a kid, even if it was with the Mums on shopping.

Hard to believe all that now when you look around at the present-day desolation and harsh, socially featureless, urban landscape.

[RDR]

As a Gorbals family kid, did we welcome the redevelopment?
Yes, of course, the idea of a move to something cleaner and brighter was a chance we thought would never happen.
Even for just the toilets alone. My worst memory of tenement living was those awful insanitary toilets on the stair head.
Then there was the landlords, who did no repairs and evicted at the drop of a hat.
A move to a brand spanking new Council flat/house was a dream.
The trouble was we were sold a pup. Those who ended up in QE square, Pine Place or the Hutchison E flats, soon found they had exchanged one form of sub-standard housing for another....

Now when I look back, from 50 years perspective, I can see what they were trying to do, with the best of intentions, but I do wonder if an element of refurbishment might have been considered.

Like many I can find no excuse for the whole mess that was made of Charing X.

[Bridie]

I think it's easy to say what should have happened almost fifty years later given the fact that the powers that be have started to (almost) get it right.
I don't think it would have been a practical solution to renovate the old tenements from points already mentioned ie the urge to use new building materials and even the social aspect of the positivity that was flowing everywhere in the groovy new decade.
Where would the space have been to put in a bathroom in every home?
Nearly every Glasgow family share the same story - leaving the dirty tenement to a bigger,cleaner box in a scheme. My family hated the isolation and gave up the corporation house to move back into a less dirty tenement than the one they left behind. My granny had nowhere to walk - she wasnt used to walking in green fields.

It's very easy to get nostalgic when talking about the changes in the sixties in Glasgow. That department store you mentioned Escotregen was probably Dallass's - my mother worked there at one time. I used to meet an auntie at the fountain in Charing X, she worked in an office in Lyndoch Terrace, we would spend lunchtime looking at the glamorous dress shops that were all around Charing X.

[RDR]

I think it's easy to say what should have happened almost fifty years later given the fact that the powers that be have started to (almost) get it right.
I don't think it would have been a practical solution to renovate the old tenements from points already mentioned ie the urge to use new building materials and even the social aspect of the positivity that was flowing everywhere in the groovy new decade.
Where would the space have been to put in a bathroom in every home?
Nearly every Glasgow family share the same story - leaving the dirty tenement to a bigger,cleaner box in a scheme. My family hated the isolation and gave up the corporation house to move back into a less dirty tenement than the one they left behind. My granny had nowhere to walk - she wasnt used to walking in green fields.

It's very easy to get nostalgic when talking about the changes in the sixties in Glasgow. That department store you mentioned Escotregen was probably Dallass's - my mother worked there at one time. I used to meet an auntie at the fountain in Charing X, she worked in an office in Lyndoch Terrace, we would spend lunchtime looking at the glamorous dress shops that were all around Charing X.

There was a story, possibly a myth, that certain tenements in the Gorbals, were rotten from the day they were built. In other words they were so cheaply and poorly built that they were built to be slums from day one. I always seem to remember the worst ones, as being the ones with the spiral staircases, we stayed for a bit in one of those. I doubt any refurbishment could have improved them.
On the other hand if you looked at some of the tenements in South Portland Street and Abbotsford Place, where big flats had been sub-divided down, then there was definite case for doing something with them rather than demolition, which is what happened.
I think the Gorbals, at the time, had such an image problem, that the Corporation didn't want to be seen to leave any of it alone.
Ironic, since we eventually moved out to Govanhill, via Hutchie E, that we thought Govanhill was very up market and look at the reputation it has now!

[Dexter St. Clair]

Thank you RDR. I shall use that Govanhill analogy the next time I bump into one of the many tenemental lovers who reminisce from a semi in the suburbs. There's a lot to like about Govanhill but it is certainly a living example of some of the drawbacks to living up a close.

[Bridie]

I think it's easy to say what should have happened almost fifty years later given the fact that the powers that be have started to (almost) get it right.
I don't think it would have been a practical solution to renovate the old tenements from points already mentioned ie the urge to use new building materials and even the social aspect of the positivity that was flowing everywhere in the groovy new decade.
Where would the space have been to put in a bathroom in every home?
Nearly every Glasgow family share the same story - leaving the dirty tenement to a bigger,cleaner box in a scheme. My family hated the isolation and gave up the corporation house to move back into a less dirty tenement than the one they left behind. My granny had nowhere to walk - she wasnt used to walking in green fields.

It's very easy to get nostalgic when talking about the changes in the sixties in Glasgow. That department store you mentioned Escotregen was probably Dallass's - my mother worked there at one time. I used to meet an auntie at the fountain in Charing X, she worked in an office in Lyndoch Terrace, we would spend lunchtime looking at the glamorous dress shops that were all around Charing X.

There was a story, possibly a myth, that certain tenements in the Gorbals, were rotten from the day they were built. In other words they were so cheaply and poorly built that they were built to be slums from day one. I always seem to remember the worst ones, as being the ones with the spiral staircases, we stayed for a bit in one of those. I doubt any refurbishment could have improved them.
On the other hand if you looked at some of the tenements in South Portland Street and Abbotsford Place, where big flats had been sub-divided down, then there was definite case for doing something with them rather than demolition, which is what happened.
I think the Gorbals, at the time, had such an image problem, that the Corporation didn't want to be seen to leave any of it alone.
Ironic, since we eventually moved out to Govanhill, via Hutchie E, that we thought Govanhill was very up market and look at the reputation it has now!

It's a good point RDR and one that struck me recently as well. I did one of those "nostalgic/ virtual walks in present day" on google maps in the area that I lived in - Possil.
As a child I used to wander all around the busy streets, walking from Bardowie Street to Saracen X. I grew up in a "good" tenement ie red sandstone however my street was the only one that had that type of build. The rest of the streets, Carbeth, Barloch, Bardowie had either black tenements or what was called "new houses" - blonde sandstone built later.
On the google (updated 2012) walk I started at Hobart Street walking towards Saracen X. Weird feeling to see nothing left of any of the streets on the left hand side however in the distance - my street and the windows of my old house (top flat) - a bit like an apocalypse with a familiar beacon Obviously the red sandstone was good enough to refurbish.

[RDR]

I think it's easy to say what should have happened almost fifty years later given the fact that the powers that be have started to (almost) get it right.
I don't think it would have been a practical solution to renovate the old tenements from points already mentioned ie the urge to use new building materials and even the social aspect of the positivity that was flowing everywhere in the groovy new decade.
Where would the space have been to put in a bathroom in every home?
Nearly every Glasgow family share the same story - leaving the dirty tenement to a bigger,cleaner box in a scheme. My family hated the isolation and gave up the corporation house to move back into a less dirty tenement than the one they left behind. My granny had nowhere to walk - she wasnt used to walking in green fields.

It's very easy to get nostalgic when talking about the changes in the sixties in Glasgow. That department store you mentioned Escotregen was probably Dallass's - my mother worked there at one time. I used to meet an auntie at the fountain in Charing X, she worked in an office in Lyndoch Terrace, we would spend lunchtime looking at the glamorous dress shops that were all around Charing X.

There was a story, possibly a myth, that certain tenements in the Gorbals, were rotten from the day they were built. In other words they were so cheaply and poorly built that they were built to be slums from day one. I always seem to remember the worst ones, as being the ones with the spiral staircases, we stayed for a bit in one of those. I doubt any refurbishment could have improved them.
On the other hand if you looked at some of the tenements in South Portland Street and Abbotsford Place, where big flats had been sub-divided down, then there was definite case for doing something with them rather than demolition, which is what happened.
I think the Gorbals, at the time, had such an image problem, that the Corporation didn't want to be seen to leave any of it alone.
Ironic, since we eventually moved out to Govanhill, via Hutchie E, that we thought Govanhill was very up market and look at the reputation it has now!

It's a good point RDR and one that struck me recently as well. I did one of those "nostalgic/ virtual walks in present day" on google maps in the area that I lived in - Possil.
As a child I used to wander all around the busy streets, walking from Bardowie Street to Saracen X. I grew up in a "good" tenement ie red sandstone however my street was the only one that had that type of build. The rest of the streets, Carbeth, Barloch, Bardowie had either black tenements or what was called "new houses" - blonde sandstone built later.
On the google (updated 2012) walk I started at Hobart Street walking towards Saracen X. Weird feeling to see nothing left of any of the streets on the left hand side however in the distance - my street and the windows of my old house (top flat) - a bit like an apocalypse with a familiar beacon Obviously the red sandstone was good enough to refurbish.

I don't know Possil very well being a Southside boy, though my Mother's family came from Maryhill, though I do go through it these days for work purposes.
I know what you mean though. What's left of the Gorbals is completely different from my boyhood. Even the road alignments have changed. Crown Street for instance.
The replacement schemes were supposed to be better they just didn't work out that way, but can we demolish the myth that in comparing the two, crime was worse in schemes than in the old 'areas'. My memories of the 'old' Gorbals community, are of a fairly dangeorus place where violence, drunkeness and domestic abuse were common. The coming of drugs has/had made things worse but it was always bad.