
Glasgow is trying to make urban living less miserable - Kaibeezy
https://mosaicscience.com/story/urban-living-city-mental-health-glasgow-cities-happiness-regeneration/
======
Kaibeezy
_For ponds, she says, it might be that the presence of a certain type of newt
tells you whether or not the water is healthy. In cities, the newts are
children. “If you can see children, it’s probably a healthy and happy city.”_

Large [presumably US] Cities With the Lowest Share of Families With Children

    
    
      San Francisco    16.5%
      Seattle          18.7%
      Washington, D.C. 18.9%
      New Orleans      20.7%
      Miami            21.4%
      Minneapolis      21.8%
      Philadelphia     22.5%
      Portland         23.2%
      Denver           23.3%
      Cleveland        23.7%
    

[https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/top-cities-for-
families...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/01/top-cities-for-families-
with-children-data-childfree/580372/)

~~~
crispyambulance
I can't speak for SF or Seattle, but I suspect a big reason for lack of
families with children in many large American cities is that, for the most
part, public schools are unacceptable for any family that cares about
education.

DC, Philly, Baltimore, Cleveland... all the same story. Even in gentrifying
and resurgent neighborhoods, parents with the means to do so leave as soon as
their kids get to school age or enroll them in extremely expensive private
schools. Some might try charter schools or selective magnet schools, but the
local neighborhood school in your typical big city is typically a hard "no
go".

~~~
scarmig
SF has a lottery system. With the wrong stroke of luck, your child can be
damned to hours of commuting across the city every day, just to go to a crappy
school, when a "good" one might be across the street.

That's an extreme example, and in the worst case scenario there are plenty of
good private schools to send your children. But choosing to live in SF comes
with such a set of pros and cons that many parents of school-age children who
have a choice choose to live outside of it.

~~~
ska
Is a lottery system really worse overall than just letting people buy their
way into desired school district? That model obviously hasn't been working
well either.

~~~
scarmig
Depends on your goals and metrics. I'd say yes, it is worse.

An interesting read: [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-
school-s...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/us/san-francisco-school-
segregation.html)

~~~
ska
Thanks, that was a genuine question.

------
mothsonasloth
Glaswegian here.

I would love to support the merry picture this article is painting but most of
the examples are happy accidents.

The diet aspect is cultural and will be around for many generations. You can
try and "chip" away at it by education and social mobility but it will still
be around. In fact I could murder a fish and chip supper right now.

In terms of open spaces and such, Glasgow council is selling land like its
going out of fashion to developers. The joke being "oh theres more student
accomodation being built". Plus the city's infrastructure is under strain as
Glasgow approaches the 1 million mark.

The weather will always be crap.

~~~
A2017U1
> Glasgow council is selling land like its going out of fashion to developers

Guessing the sentiment here is that this is bad? Why exactly? Is Glasgow not
growing and ever more people needing roofs over heads?

I've never once heard a person hate on farmers for producing too much food for
consumption but the moment developers come even close to meeting demand for
housing they are considered on par with criminals.

Both are essentials for life. Yet an abundance of one may reduce an
individuals personal wealth.

In my country developers are banned from political donations, bikie gangs
(organised criminals) are not.

~~~
kiliantics
Because private developers only build housing for a profit, which does not
make it possible to satisfy everyone's needs and is therefore not in line with
the supposed purpose of the council. If it truly cared about the needs of its
constituents, the council could contract out to develop the land itself and
provide housing at a cost accessible to everyone. Instead there is a lot of
money sloshing around for the wealthy and powerful, and a lot of poor people
with inadequate housing. This is why these people are considered "on par with
criminals" and why your farming analogy is not really relevant.

------
Glawen
I lived 5 years in Glasgow to get my engineering diploma, coming from a quiet
village from the french countryside. It was a shock when I arrived there,
barely speaking english, having never lived in a city before, but my god I
loved this city so much.

Weather is depressing as hell, violence is common, the food is the worst I
ever tasted and there is still this silly war between catholic and protestant.
But glaswegians are so friendly, and the city is so mad that I felt so alive
there. Living there was surreal every time of the day, from the morning
hangover, the awful food to the mad parties at night.

Having said that, I never saw myself raising a family there, Glasgow is just
too much of everything.

------
arethuza
Glasgow may be in the words of Frankie Boyle "like Blade Runner without the
special effects" but it is worth noting that it is definitely one of the
friendliest cities, whereas here in Edinburgh we might have one of the most
beautiful cities in the world but the inhabitants tend to be comparatively
grim of mood.

~~~
jermaustin1
And a large Glasgow City Centre apartment about half of the price of a similar
apartment in Edinburgh. Making urbanization a lot more affordable. That said,
moving 30 minutes out of Glasgow (Kilmarnock), you can get a similar end unit
apartment for a third of the cost in Glasgow walking distance to a direct line
to Glasgow.

And here I am in the States driving 50 miles a day and paying triple for my
house what a nice City Centre flat costs in Edinburgh.

~~~
arethuza
~30 mins by train from Edinburgh Haymarket gets you across to Fife - which is
where we moved from central Edinburgh ~3 years ago.

------
peterbraden
> Anna recalls the change. “When we were in the tenements, you’d shout up to
> the window: ‘Mammy, I want a piece of jam!’ Before you knew it there was a
> dozen of them being thrown out of the window.” In the tower block, she did
> not let her own children play unsupervised. Neighbours only spoke if they
> took the same lift. Her daughter was threatened with a bread knife.

Interesting that this anecdote is the same theme as the children's song we
learned at school "You cannae through pieces oot a twenty story flat"

------
OliverJones
Chicago, USA, had similar urban "renewal" woes, resulting in the construction
of high-rise housing projects (called housing estates in Scotland). The Robert
Taylor Homes were a particularly egregious example.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Taylor_Homes)

They were demolished in the early 21st century. But, unfortunately, Chicago
remains a city where it's a vast dangerous struggle to live in poverty.

'twould be interesting to compare Glasgow's sectarianism with Chicago's
racism, to see whether ways of mitigating one could mitigate the other.

------
stfwn
If anyone is interested in this type of thing I would recommend reading
‘Seeing Like a State’ by James C. Scott. It is one of those books that makes a
point so definitively that many articles on the topic could just be appended
as examples.

From Wikipedia:

> The book catalogues schemes which states impose upon populaces that are
> convenient for the state since they make societies "legible", but are not
> necessarily good for the people. For example, census data, standardized
> weights and measures, and uniform languages make it easier to tax and
> control the population.

~~~
perfunctory
What's wrong with "standardized weights and measures"?

~~~
thaumasiotes
Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World (
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780747411/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780747411/)
) makes the case that standardized weights and measures do indeed make things
easier for the state, but that in this case the state is on the side of the
peasants against the nobility who would like to enserf them.

History supports this view in some obvious ways -- European peasant
revolutions included demands _for_ standardized weights and measures as a
counter to abuse of nonstandard measures by local lords.

------
baybal2
I think UK did not get highrise development right. Building residential
highrises far away from workplaces,social facilities, and no good transit
pretty much defeats the purpose of building highrises.

In other words, UK cities with "depressive" highrise communities unknowingly
copied Moscow suburbs.

~~~
smcl
You're right that the UK government bungled the high-rise housing in the 60s
and 70s (as documented by Adam Curtis in "The Great British Housing Disaster"
\-
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5VorymiL4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5VorymiL4)).

But I'd like to explore the UK/Moscow comparison though. I don't have first-
hand experience with Moscow but I _am_ familiar with the Czech Republic where
_paneláky_ house a sizeable chunk of the population. Many of my friends live
in them and they're generally quite pleasant, well served by transport and
amenities (shops, bars, things like hairdressers and such).

What I'm getting at is that this - in the "west" there is a lot of
misunderstanding about life in Warsaw Pact countries. From my Czech experience
it would not surprise me in the least if much of the Moscow mass-housing
you're referring to was planned and constructed _better_ than similar
developments in UK.

So I think the comparison between (say) Red Road flats in Glasgow or the
Banana Flats in Leith and Moscow's suburbs might be unfair _to Moscow_.

~~~
baybal2
I'd say Moscow improved since Soviet times. The issue with Moscow suburbs were
that they were made to house a lot of lower end Soviet proletarians, densely,
cheaply, and most importantly away from Soviet elites.

They had no or bare minimum in terms of living infrastructure like shops,
schools, daycare and people had to travel to Moscow for everything.

The only connection they had to the city centre were busses, and trains whose
routes and schedules were very peculiarly planned, again to frustrate
residents from faring to city centre too often.

Those bedroom communities were only linked to the metro like a decade or so
ago.

------
randomsearch
Used to live in Glasgow and it is my favourite city. I left for a job
elsewhere.

The weather and the dark winters are the real issue. Association with violence
is outdated - it’s much safer than London, for example.

Association with drinking alcohol entirely accurate. If you like that, Glasgow
is a great place to party. It also contributes to a very communal feel around
the pubs there. And it brings the downsides you’d expect - increased levels of
alcoholism and domestic violence.

The Protestant catholic thing is a regular source of annoyance when the orange
marches are on, but you can otherwise ignore it. Some momentum against the
marching is developing now, hopefully the council will act.

Now the positives: long beautiful summer evenings, relatively warm winters,
incredible arts and music scenes, best pubs and bars in the UK, beautiful
parks, stunning architecture (really, really stunning), beautiful tenements
you can afford to live in on an average wage like you’re in some kind of
Parisian movie, great museums, Loch Lomond about 30 min drive away and lots of
other beautiful countryside nearby, great staging post for the highlands.
Incredible urban landscape to explore. Two great universities. Very vegan
friendly - a bunch of the major venues for music and general hipster things
are vegan.

But the biggest plus is the people - the most kind, warm, friendly people
you’ll meet in the UK. People shouting out of their windows to invite me in
for a drink. Starting conversations with me as I walk down the street.
Drinking whisky with strangers you’ve just met at the bar. Community
organisations (like the Children’s Wood mentioned in the article) spring up
everywhere. This innate sense of fairness. It’s so hard to describe, but go
visit and you might be lucky enough to understand why “people make glasgow” is
both a council marketing slogan and also perfectly true.

------
adrianasoto
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------
tonyedgecombe
_The weather will always be crap._

Climate change will solve that problem.

~~~
dang
Please don't do that here.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21272073](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21272073)
and marked it off-topic.

