In Glasgow in 2040, it still rains in June but after two decades, the downpour is hotter, more intense.

The sky weeps these great golf ball tears that, having collected all the microplastics and pollens and chemicals in the air on the way down, degrade the water repellent coating on your jacket within a few hours. That is, if you’re wearing a jacket. Because despite the deluge, it’s 37C.

Flashes of pouring rain mean it’s just as hard to have a Voi Girl Summer now as it was in 2026, so you leave the bright pink E-bike and take public transport instead. Travelling to the city centre from the west end, south side, the super hospital or the airport has been made a little easier by the first phase of a mass transit system, but the fringes of Scotland’s largest city are still waiting on further options testing. Buses connecting the north and east of Glasgow have been given a tokenistic “Clyde Metro” vinyl skin to placate residents – a hollow promise that they will be included in the network in later phases.

It’s 2040, the year that theoretically Scotland should have built all of the things it’s been promising to build (since at least 2007). There’s been an increase in social housing, but there’s also been an increase in destitution, so most people under 40 are still living at home. The A9 dualling is nearly complete. So is the first phase of Clyde Metro. The world-class cycle network is safer, though about a quarter of what was promised.

The Mackintosh Building no longer looks like a scaffolding stereogram. Sauchiehall Street’s old Marks and Spencer’s and the O2 ABC have long been bland student flats with lacklustre chain restaurants punting loaded fries below. Developers have transformed the Union Corner gap site into a landmark, first-of-its-kind student accommodation scheme complete with a multi-storey car park and flagship Sexy Coffee space. Chinatown has also been transformed into a sought-after neighbourhood with swanky studio flats, student rooms, and bubble tea chains with a spectacular annual Lunar New Year event sponsored by a bank.

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