In 2020, living in Glasgow city centre was like living in a frontier town, surrounded by scattered outlaws and these quiet, disorientating developments that created cold liminal pockets throughout.

Students and many residents took flight during the pandemic, leaving a gaping hole in the population that made the city feel like 28 Days Later. The council set out a plan to double the city centre population to 40,000 by 2035. But beyond the pandemic, the sense of alienation has persisted, a by-product of a planning strategy that prioritises towers for a transient population.

The local authority’s plan to increase the inner-city population while making the city centre more liveable is ticking along: the population is estimated to be more than 28,000 these days, with 80.9 per cent of current residents aged 16-44. They point to the Avenues programme, “significant plans” for hundreds of new homes, and work to attract mixed-use investment as paving the way for “a more liveable neighbourhood”.

But I would stop short of calling the council’s plans “ambitious”. Their city centre plans might be backed by billions of pounds of public and private investment and a suite of planning strategies, but the reality for people living between G1 and G4 is substantially different from the sunny architectural renders meant to depict the city’s next chapter.

Residents have watched their neighbourhoods hollowed out by student blocks, blighted by title parties, and still don’t have a single established GP practice. They regularly clean their own streets by hand.

I spoke with the community council representing my old neighbourhood of Merchant and Trongate, and they recounted the steady resident concerns that make up the “bread and butter” of their meetings: oversaturation of student accommodation, lack of affordable housing, title parties, lack of a GP, play park, or community hub, obnoxiously loud buskers, and antisocial behaviour. The points are echoed by Anderston and Garnethill Community Councils.

Members of the Merchant City and Trongate Community Council at Glasgow Cross. (Image: MCTCC)

“Frankly, we’re not clear what the........

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