Worst Town In Scotland

[Highland Capital]

Agreed - they've got what could be a world class waterfront and instead they've shoved a dual carriageway right along it with big car parks and concrete 60s buildings next to it.
Maybe it is just the contours of the land that's forced them to build the road there - but for such a focal point of a wide area of tourism, it could be a lot better.

The hotels at the waterfront face away from the water. What?!

[tarapoa]

19 minutes ago, Highland Capital said:

The hotels at the waterfront face away from the water. What?!

In the centre everything seems to.............it improves a mile or two further south of the town centre

 

 

[TheScarf]

The most pointless dually in the world as well.  Doesn't fucking go anywhere.  Single carriageway all ways out of the place.

[Jacksgranda]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

The most pointless dually in the world as well.  Doesn't fucking go anywhere.  Single carriageway all ways out of the place.

Lets you get through it quick?

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

dually 

Oooft, deal with this please mods. 

[Hillonearth]

7 hours ago, Adamski said:

As a local I'm a bit biased, but I'd say that Strathbungo has definitely become more gentrified over the past 5-6 years. Not at the rate of Finnieston, but there's a steady influx of smart/trendy shops, bars, and restaurants popping up in the place of things that previously weren't anything notable (off the top of my head I can think of three currently-unused shops getting done up with the type of businesses you'd associate with gentrification set to move in). It's borne out by property prices, which I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit chuffed about.

We used to rent in Finnieston, and one of the things that appealed to us about Strathbungo when we bought there was that it reminded us of Finnieston 10-15 years ago. Strathbungo has more of a community feel though: a less transient population, people putting down roots and wanting to improve the area, etc. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the place when I was out with a mate of mine who lives just round the corner in Niddrie Square between Xmas and New Year - I vaguely remembered being in the Allison Arms once years ago when it was a bit of a spit and sawdust shop...changed days...

[Catweasel]

Really? I loved Finnieston when living in Glasgow. Basically a long strip of quality restaurants, cafes and bars.

Plus, don’t forget Finneston has the crane...

[milton75]

On 21/01/2019 at 21:50, ThatBoyRonaldo said:

Isn't the thing about Glasgow that it's spent the best part of a century shrinking in population so there is not as much pressure on prices to rise as somewhere like Edinburgh which is growing quite rapidly?

I was reading about this just a few weeks ago. Up until 2001 you'd be correct, but since then it's risen year on year. According to the council's figures - "621,020 in mid-2017, a rise of almost 6,000 from a year previously, and significantly above the number of 578,710 people living in the city in 2001. This shows a rise of almost 7.5% in 16 years."
That's obviously just the "city" core, and not the wiser conurbation though. What I hadn't realised until recently was that a large part of the population decline wasn't just down to the New Towns being built, but also simply redrawing of the city boundaries by various governments.

Looking back at it, I think most people would agree that the new town programme was not a great success, and neither were many of the 1960-70s demolition and replacement schemes. There's no getting away from the fact that much of the housing stock was in poor repair, particularly in the areas worst hit by bombing and so on, but with hindsight it seems tragic that rather than renovating miles and miles of Victorian tenement stock they instead chose to bulldoze and replace with high-rises or New Towns. Even notorious areas like the Gorbals had some beautifully built and quite grand tenements. They may have been slums inside, but the core fabric could have been retained and refurbished.

[Adamski]

15 hours ago, Hillonearth said:

I vaguely remembered being in the Allison Arms once years ago when it was a bit of a spit and sawdust shop...changed days...

The Allison Arms is an excellent pub.

[Jacksgranda]

2 hours ago, milton75 said:

I was reading about this just a few weeks ago. Up until 2001 you'd be correct, but since then it's risen year on year. According to the council's figures - "621,020 in mid-2017, a rise of almost 6,000 from a year previously, and significantly above the number of 578,710 people living in the city in 2001. This shows a rise of almost 7.5% in 16 years."
That's obviously just the "city" core, and not the wiser conurbation though. What I hadn't realised until recently was that a large part of the population decline wasn't just down to the New Towns being built, but also simply redrawing of the city boundaries by various governments.

Looking back at it, I think most people would agree that the new town programme was not a great success, and neither were many of the 1960-70s demolition and replacement schemes. There's no getting away from the fact that much of the housing stock was in poor repair, particularly in the areas worst hit by bombing and so on, but with hindsight it seems tragic that rather than renovating miles and miles of Victorian tenement stock they instead chose to bulldoze and replace with high-rises or New Towns. Even notorious areas like the Gorbals had some beautifully built and quite grand tenements. They may have been slums inside, but the core fabric could have been retained and refurbished.

Very expensive and very time consuming. Those tenements would have required major alterations to provide bathrooms for every "unit" just for one example, basically they would have needed gutted and retaining only the four external walls, and would probably have ended up with less people living there than before. High rises solved that problem to a certain extent. 

However, it could have been done, there is no doubt about it.

[Darren]

38 minutes ago, Adamski said:

The Allison Arms is an excellent pub.

One of a few good boozers in the area. Hopefully the abomination that is Koelschip Yard closes down soon and is turned into somewhere a bit more palatable.

[milton75]

4 minutes ago, Jacksgranda said:

Very expensive and very time consuming. Those tenements would have required major alterations to provide bathrooms for every "unit" just for one example, basically they would have needed gutted and retaining only the four external walls, and would probably have ended up with less people living there than before. High rises solved that problem to a certain extent. 

However, it could have been done, there is no doubt about it.

There's no doubt they would have ended up with less people, but back in those days there were flats with 4 to a room. With regards to the toilets etc., you're right, but this is exactly what has been done in many places. I was given a tour of a Housing Association scheme in the mid-90s where they were renovating flats in Partick. The flats had toilets, but they'd been crammed in at some point presumably in the 50s or something. The Association was putting 2 flats in per floor where previously there had been 3.

But such massive changes wouldn't necessarily be the norm. For places like the Gorbals, yes, but much of the tenement stock in areas like the East End were of more generous proportions, so modernisation would have been easier.

One of the fundamental issues is the wider environmental impact; the social cost of moving families, often to places without amenities and jobs, and also the damage done to the traditional high-density streetscape. When you see inner-city infill housing now, planners tend to want high-density and where possible restoration or continuation of traditional street layouts. We don't want the windswept hinterlands that surrounded tower blocks; they lack coherent urban structure. Returning higher-density inner-city living to these areas creates a tipping point of local population that allows small businesses to thrive, encourages public transport use, and is generally just a lot more practical than miles of identikit suburban noddy-hoses that gradually destroy the soul.

[Adamski]

10 minutes ago, Darren said:

One of a few good boozers in the area. Hopefully the abomination that is Koelschip Yard closes down soon and is turned into somewhere a bit more palatable.

I ended up in Koelschip Yard on New Years Day, primarily because it was the only place in the area that was open that evening. First time I'd been in as it had never really been on my radar. What a pleasant surprise - an excellent, interesting range of beers, and a guy running the place who is totally passionate about what he does and keen to get you sampling different ones. They also have a thing going with Ranjit's Kitchen across the road so that you can have your meal in Koelschip Yard if you want alcohol with it. There was lots to like - I'll definitely be back in.

Edit - if you're looking for a place to shut down in the area then my vote would absolutely go to the Regent Bar with its Union Jacks during marching season and its miserable barstaff. That place is long past its sell by date.

Edited January 23, 2019 by Adamski

[milton75]

8 minutes ago, Darren said:

One of a few good boozers in the area. Hopefully the abomination that is Koelschip Yard closes down soon and is turned into somewhere a bit more palatable.

My mate tried reasoning with them (descended fairly quickly into abuse) on twitter, and they just blocked anyone that pointed out their wankiness. That whole "manifesto" about serving beer in schooners was a major riddy.

[Darren]

It's a place that splits opinion, evidently.

Their initial Facebook post had me against it from the very start - we're going to serve the beer in schooners but it doesn't matter. If you're selling two-thirds for £4 then aye, it does.

[Adamski]

1 minute ago, Darren said:

It's a place that splits opinion, evidently.

Their initial Facebook post had me against it from the very start - we're going to serve the beer in schooners but it doesn't matter. If you're selling two-thirds for £4 then aye, it does.

Sorry - I know we're lurching substantially off-topic, and I'll struggle to post this without sounding like every hipster going, but there's times I'm quite in the mood for paying a bit extra to try out interesting/different/wanky beers, and it's carving out a niche as a place to do it. When I was in there a lot of the stuff on the menu was 10-12% alcohol, and I was fine with it coming in smaller measures.

[Darren]

2 minutes ago, Adamski said:

Sorry - I know we're lurching substantially off-topic, and I'll struggle to post this without sounding like every hipster going, but there's times I'm quite in the mood for paying a bit extra to try out interesting/different/wanky beers, and it's carving out a niche as a place to do it. When I was in there a lot of the stuff on the menu was 10-12% alcohol, and I was fine with it coming in smaller measures.

I'm more than happy to try out different and often stronger beers in the Allison Arms. As a wee bonus, they also accept cash and don't enforce a contactless-only payment method.

[Jacksgranda]

39 minutes ago, Darren said:

I'm more than happy to try out different and often stronger beers in the Allison Arms. As a wee bonus, they also accept cash and don't enforce a contactless-only payment method.

 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Indeed, whilst Dundee and Tranent are still on a map the granite city shouldnt be anywhere near this conversation.

Clearly hasn't been in Dundee in recently.

[Lambie's Pigeon Feed]

On 22/01/2019 at 11:54, Adamski said:

As a local I'm a bit biased, but I'd say that Strathbungo has definitely become more gentrified over the past 5-6 years. Not at the rate of Finnieston, but there's a steady influx of smart/trendy shops, bars, and restaurants popping up in the place of things that previously weren't anything notable (off the top of my head I can think of three currently-unused shops getting done up with the type of businesses you'd associate with gentrification set to move in). It's borne out by property prices, which I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit chuffed about.

We used to rent in Finnieston, and one of the things that appealed to us about Strathbungo when we bought there was that it reminded us of Finnieston 10-15 years ago. Strathbungo has more of a community feel though: a less transient population, people putting down roots and wanting to improve the area, etc. 

The Rum Shack seemed to be a bit of a catalyst, all of a sudden you had that opposite the Ally Arms and a few interesting eateries opening and it's been slowly taking hold since. Coolness has been seeping out of Shawlands into Strathbungo for a while which will also fanned the flames, plus the big nice tenements, being near town and a belter of a park help.

I'm moving back to Glasgow soon and will be aiming for the area. Apart from having no underground the south side pisses all over the west end for me these days.