City Of Glasgow Research Articles

Re-examining the role of street network configuration on bicycle commuting using crowdsourced data

Understanding the role of street network configuration on commuter cycling can aid city planners in assessing and evaluating interventions to promote regular cycling into people's routines. Studies examining this relationship generally build models on observed cycling counts. While this provides valuable information, it could still result in an incomplete picture because some routes with advantages (e.g., good accessibility, amenities etc) may not have been utilised as expected because of other confounding factors (e.g., safety issues, motorised traffic) or vice-versa, leading to incorrect conclusions especially in the absence of data on these confounding factors. Thus, in this study, we argue that observing higher cycling flows on a route should not be the sole criteria to examine the role of street network configuration on the cycling patterns, especially when certain confounding factors have not been controlled for. We utilise data from the activity tracking app Strava for the city of Glasgow and compare the observed cycling intensities with the modelled cycling intensities where all the cyclists take the shortest routes. We estimated three linear regression models for: Observed Strava Cycling Intensities, Modelled Strava Cycling Intensities, and the difference between these two measures. Street network configuration were incorporated using Space Syntax measures: Normalised Angular Choice and Normalised Angular Integration. The roles of these variables, along with route characteristics and natural environment factors, on commuter cyclists' trips are explored. Visual exploration and linear regression models indicate that cyclists deviated away from the well-integrated, straighter routes to aesthetically attractive routes with cycling infrastructure, and towards links within mixed land use and to the least deprived areas. These results are of interest to policy makers and assist in infrastructure planning.

Understanding urban traffic flows in response to COVID-19 pandemic with emerging urban big data in Glasgow

Urban traffic analysis has played an important role in urban development, providing insights for urban planning, traffic management, and resource allocation. Meanwhile, the global pandemic of COVID-19 has significantly changed people's travel behaviour in urban areas. This research uses the spatial Durbin model to understand the relationship between traffic flows, urban infrastructure, and socio-demographic indicators before, during, and after pandemic periods. We include factors such as road characteristics, socio-demographics, surrounding built environments (land use and nearby points of interest), and the emerging urban big data source of Google Street View images to understand their influences on time series traffic flows. Taking the city of Glasgow as the case study, we have found that areas with more young and white dwellers are associated with more traffic flows, while natural green spaces are associated with fewer traffic flows. Major roads between cities and towns also show heavier traffic flows. Besides, the application of Google Street View images in this research has revealed the heterogeneous effects of green space on urban traffic flows, as the magnitudes of their effects vary by distance. We also detect that the spatial dependence between adjacent neighbourhoods among the traffic flows and associated urban parameters is variable during the four COVID-19 periods. With the influence of COVID-19, there has been a significant decrease in long-distance travel. The noticeable change in travel behaviour presents a valuable opportunity to encourage active travel in the near future.

Supporting migrant inclusion: the role of linguistic diversity in community-led organisations

ABSTRACT This empirical study explores migrant inclusion in the linguistically diverse city of Glasgow. The particular focus is on the minoritisation of emergent speakers of English, who can find it especially difficult to access support. The research involved in-depth interviews with professionals at third-sector organisations supporting people with a refugee or migrant background. Interviewees gave examples of flexible communicative practices that support migrant inclusion. Such communicative practices can be understood in terms of translanguaging: the way that speakers fluidly draw on their full linguistic repertoires to make meaning. The analysis indicates that language minoritisation can be reduced when services better reflect the linguistic diversity of community members who access them. The examples given show how organisations can embrace linguistic diversity in ways that appear to enable inclusion, valuing the linguistic and cultural resources of recently arrived and settled community members. The article concludes that organisations which are more community led and linguistically diverse can better support the inclusion of language-minoritised migrants.

Study on the layout of light rapid transit station connecting bus line based on GIS network analysis -- Taking Glasgow City as an example

Study on the layout of light rapid transit station connecting bus line based on GIS network analysis -- Taking Glasgow City as an example

Place-Based Adaptation through Network Governance

Following the inception of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) within the UNFCCC in 1992, national CCA plans began to emerge around 2008. However, identifying successful cases of adaptation remains challenging. This is because CCA policies often stop at planning, with selective reporting of relevant projects. Recognizing that planning is not the same as actual delivery, substantial gaps persist in connecting these plans to concrete actions, hindering successful adaptation. This paper explores this implementation deficit through the examination of three different governance modes (hierarchies, markets, and networks). Drawing on a policy review (desk study), a qualitative online survey, and semi-structured interviews with professionals engaged in local CCA policies, we identified enablers of effective adaptation policy progress by comparing the Edinburgh and Glasgow city regions. Despite their close spatial and relational proximity, these two city regions have distinct administrative geographies, political leadership, and adaptation-related networks, which identify unique local contexts sufficient to drive different CCA progress. We noted more CCA progress when specific resources included coordinators (dedicated staff) and fiscal supplements, along with regional networks connecting local communities and strengthening partnerships while sharing common values such as reputational opportunities in the Glasgow city region. These findings shed light on effective adaptation governance modes that require not only a deep understanding of place-based contexts but also the presence or nurturing of broader and reinforced networks.

Sailors, Spies, and Sovereignty: Greenock’s Revolutionary Turmoil, 1688–1691

Despite many pamphlets and news sources declaring the Jacobites defeat in 1690, the Williamite War in Ireland carried on until June 1691. Among the more cautious observers of the situation was the Scottish Privy Council. Records indicate that coastal towns – in this case Greenock – were potential avenues for Jacobite invasion from the Irish Sea. This article situates the Privy Council’s and local action in both their environmental contexts and within the history of borders and borderlands. It traces Greenock’s place in the revolutionary narrative as a place of great strategic importance because of the bustling port and proximity to the city of Glasgow. Coastal and port security played a crucial role in shaping attitudes and action towards the western port towns connected to the Irish Sea. Ultimately, the Clyde River did not succumb to the enemy navy, but the coast and its inland waterways were an unpredictable space.

Does cycle commuting reduce the risk of mental ill-health? An instrumental variable analysis using distance to nearest cycle path.

Previous studies have linked cycling with improved mental wellbeing but these studies tend to use cross-sectional survey data that have small sample sizes and self-reported health measures, and are potentially susceptible to omitted-variable bias and reverse causation. We use an instrumental variable approach and an objective measure of mental ill-health taken from linked administrative data to ask: 'Does cycle commuting reduce the risk of mental ill-health?' Our study links data on commuting in Edinburgh and Glasgow from the Scottish population census with mental health prescriptions from the National Health Service Prescribing Information System records. We use road distance from home to nearest cycle path as an instrumental variable for cycle commuting. In total, 378 253 people aged 16-74years living and working in the City of Edinburgh and Glasgow City council areas at the 2011 census were included in our study; 1.85% of commuters in Glasgow and 4.8% of commuters in Edinburgh cycled to work. Amongst cyclists, 9% had a prescription for mental health compared with 14% amongst non-cyclists. Using a bivariate probit model, we estimate a mean average reduction in prescriptions for antidepressants and/or anxiolytics in the 5years following the census of -15.1% (95% CI: -15.3% to -15.0%) amongst cycle commuters compared with those who use any other mode to commute. This work suggests that cycle commuting is causally related to reduced mental ill-health and provides further evidence in support of the promotion of active travel to encourage commuters travelling shorter distances to shift to cycle commutes.

Choreographing urban ambulance in Britain, c.1870–1920: movement, gender, biological time and the city

ABSTRACT Modern British ambulance originated during the late 1800s in the country’s metropolitan areas. The fast-urbanising cities of Glasgow and London recognised that biological-temporal need required the time between injury and specialist care to compress. This was nowhere more urgent than in the large number of burn injuries that occurred in the cities’ homes and workplaces. In tracing the origins and choreography of ambulance – a set of skills; a body of trained responders; and emergency service vehicles – in Glasgow and London, this article argues that the rollout of ambulance technologies was a key moment in urban modernity. Using first aid publications, newspapers, police and fire brigade reports, and London Ambulance Service log books, we reveal how much of the early development of first aid was improvised by enterprising individuals. This led to the formation of voluntary organisations, the St John and St Andrew’s Ambulance Associations in England and Scotland respectively, followed by municipal services at the turn of the twentieth century. This early choreography of ambulance was organised on strictly gendered lines, which shut women out of public-facing roles before the First World War, and we discuss the ways in which this was achieved, from clothing to learning.

Kelvin Biodiversity Network: a decade of co-operation and citizen science

Formed in the autumn of 2013, Kelvin Biodiversity Network (KBN) focuses on the biodiversity of, and issues facing the lower River Kelvin, which is essentially the stretch of the waterway flowing through the city of Glasgow, Scotland. The network reaches about 30 organisations, mainly non-governmental organisations (NGOs). We describe KBN’s activities involving member groups working together, specifically on a conference, regular bio-recording and an annual exhibition, and discuss its achievements (especially in citizen science), limitations and possible futures.

Greater Glasgow pond amphibian surveys 2022

In 2019, Clyde Amphibian and Reptile Group (CARG) decided to organise a spring 2020 common frogspawn (Rana temporaria) survey of the Greater Glasgow area, Scotland. The COVID-19 lockdown postponed this project until 2022. The 2022 survey area was spread across four council districts: Glasgow City, South Lanarkshire, Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire. The primary aim of the surveys was to collect records of amphibian breeding throughout the Greater Glasgow Area, with secondary aims of: (1) revisiting the ponds to see if the ponds supported the spawn through to tadpole and froglet stages; (2) assessing the condition of the ponds for amphibians; (3) identifying areas for habitat enhancement work; and (4) collecting data on breeding common toads (Bufo bufo) and newts (Lissotriton, Ichthyosaura and Triturus spp.). A total of 45 volunteers participated in the surveys. Surveys were completed between March and May 2022, with a primary focus between March and April in order to capture frog spawning data. Surveyors were asked to record amphibian population data, and habitat data in order to estimate Habitat Suitability Indices. In total 162 ponds were surveyed, with evidence of breeding common frogs found in 66.1% of ponds with 11,478 frogspawn clumps counted on the first set of surveys. Only 12.2% of ponds were found to contain common toads, and small newts (Lissotriton spp.) were identified in only 7.4% of ponds. In relation to the quality of breeding habitat, 24.5% of ponds were assessed as drying out annually, which significantly reduces the suitability of these ponds for breeding. This figure is predicted to increase with anthropogenic climate change reducing the number of breeding ponds available to amphibians in the absence of intervention. Furthermore, the majority of the ponds surveyed were assessed as offering poor or below average suitability for great crested newts (Triturus cristatus) and nearly half of the ponds surveyed were found to have poor or bad water quality, which can increase stress levels for larval amphibians and may adversely affect mortality levels. However, as the analysis of water quality was subjective, these findings should be treated with caution.

The language of marketing hyperbole and consumer perception-The case of Glasgow.

The aim of the study was to explore the potential of a timed word association task to generate detailed insights into the perception of Glasgow city and its people which could inform destination and brand marketing. Destination marketers have a challenge to convey the tourist destination image to attract and satisfy the expectations of its visitors. Yet destination perceptions are often the result of multiple tourist visitor experiences at a location, neglecting the voice of the resident. The extent to which word associations varied by participants' relationship to Glasgow was identified in terms of Aaker's brand personality scale, an extension of personality research on brands and destinations. Surveying of 1,219 UK participants generated a total of 5,993 terms (city; 1,144 unique) and 5,034 terms (people; 944 unique). The value of capturing the perceptions of a destination by its residents is identified. The results showed that the city of Glasgow was often described as cold and busy, while the people were primarily described as friendly and funny. Evidence was found in support of dual-processing theory suggesting word associations based on lived experiences of a city may be generated later (in terms of the order in which the terms were generated) in a word association task, while common linguistic associations (e.g. synonyms, antonyms, hierarchies etc.) tend to be generated earlier in the task. As hypothesised, analyses revealed a significant relationship between several of the Aaker-dimensions of brand personality, and the consumers' relationship to Glasgow, extending marketing research with an empirical approach to identifying differences in the perceived personality of a destination. The study offers a practical, fast, and replicable method for destination marketers to study consumer perception at scale, which is currently not widely utilised in this field. In particular, the use of semantic distance and word embeddings provides a readily available approach to automatically categorise content derived from word associations studies, or indeed, any text-based content. In contrast, financial investment in non-validated branding and destination marketing campaigns appear to be increasingly problematic. Advances were made in testing an approach to interpreting word associations through the lens of linguistic and situated simulation (LASS) theory to provide deeper analysis to both categorise and interpret consumers' perception. Traditional approaches to tourism marketing and destination branding rarely provide such a level of analytical appraisal. The analysis presented in this paper challenges the orthodoxy and validity of investment in brand and destination marketing at a city level and the potential for word association tasks to be used as a valuable alternative method to create more effective destination marketing and branding.

Using the Doughnut Economics framework to structure whole-system thinking in socioecological wellbeing with multidisciplinary stakeholders: an applied case study in Glasgow, Scotland

BackgroundHuman and environmental health are inseparable and interdependent. Doughnut Economics is a conceptual framework combining the Sustainable Development Goals with Planetary Boundaries, thereby simultaneously considering human and planetary wellbeing. The vision is to “meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet, for the benefit of both current and future generations”. Glasgow City Council has committed to becoming a Green Wellbeing Economy, with a socially just transition to Net Zero by 2030. Through our City-University partnership, we are exploring whether Doughnut Economics can drive transformative action towards a sustainable, healthy, and equitable future. MethodsGlasgow is a pilot site for the C40 Cities’ Thriving City Portrait methodology that downscales Doughnut Economics to cities. The Portrait process combined desk-based research and policy review (from January to April, 2022) with participatory workshops to enrich initial findings. The five participatory workshops took place between April, 2022, and February, 2023, and involved about 130 stakeholders. Participants included civil servants, politicians, scientists, community representatives, employees and representatives of private and third-sector organisations, and social enterprises, identified through an iterative stakeholder mapping process with City Council partners. Workshop aims were to create pluralistic definitions of what thriving means for each of the Doughnut's social and ecological dimensions. Ethics approval for the study was granted by The University of Glasgow, College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences. FindingsThe workshops produced a shared, holistic vision for Glasgow's future as a thriving city. The Doughnut demonstrated potential as a tool for both understanding the city's socioecological impacts, and as a compass by which the city might set its policy agenda. It allows the multiple goals and priorities of a city system to congregate around a cohesive goal. The Portrait process led to a widening of stakeholders’ perspectives, applying systems thinking to policy priorities, cross-sector discussion and collaboration, and significant buy-in from a diverse range of changemakers. InterpretationThe Doughnut framework offered a starting point for Public and Planetary Health researchers to understand connections, co-benefits and trade-offs across different parts of the policy and intervention system. Applying this framework in cities could generate support for whole-system interventions and sustainable solutions to the complex and interconnected climate and social challenges we face. One of the limitations is that we do not yet know whether stakeholders can translate support for this co-created framework into tangible whole-systems action. FundingUKRI Natural Environment Research Council and University of Glasgow.

The Glasgow miracle? Storytelling, violence reduction and public policy

The city of Glasgow, once dubbed the ‘murder capital of Europe’, has more recently become famed for its experiments in violence reduction. In this article, based on a large-scale study of violence reduction, we focus on the discursive construction of this so-called ‘Glasgow miracle’. Based on interviews with 40 senior stakeholders working in Scotland during the period 2000–2020, we explore the significance of dramatic personal stories of tragedy, redemption, and rebirth in shifting the public narrative around violence. In so doing, we contribute new empirical and theoretical evidence to narrative criminology, demonstrate the conditions under which progressive policies can come to the fore, and interrogate the role of storytellers in communicating these stories with persuasion and influence.

(Re)moving exclusions: School exclusion reduction in Glasgow and London

AbstractSchool exclusion reduction in Scotland—and especially in the city of Glasgow—has received substantial media and policy attention in recent years. In London in particular, multiple governmental agencies have explicitly expressed a desire to replicate the exclusion reduction which recently occurred in Glasgow, often citing the connection between school exclusion and violence as a key motivating factor. In this paper, after presenting the statistical trends in school exclusions in Scotland, England, Glasgow and London, we mobilise original interview data to (1) explain how school exclusion reduction occurred so rapidly in Glasgow between 2007 and 2019, and (2) explore whether a similar reduction in exclusions could occur in contemporary London. We apply a theoretical framework to these issues which derives from Peters’ work on policy coordination, allowing us to compare the conditions in Glasgow and London for well‐coordinated pan‐city exclusion reduction. Building on previous research which has contrasted national school exclusion policies in Scotland and England, we conclude that policy conditions surrounding school exclusion in the two cities differ substantially. There are substantial barriers to significant exclusion reduction in London, relating to both city‐ and national‐level factors. There barriers include competition between different agencies working in relevant policy spaces; the fragmentation of the city's education system; the need for better incentivisation of inclusion by Ofsted and the Department for Education; and particular challenges to reframing the issue of school exclusion in London.

Possessing the Nations: Immigration and the Changing Landscape of the Church in Scotland

The landscape of Christianity in Britain has changed significantly in the last sixty years. The presence and influence of old and established church institutions have significantly diminished, but many new groups have emerged to keep the heritage of the church alive. This mixed-methods study presents the changes that have occurred in the Christian landscape of the City of Glasgow in Scotland in recent years. It reports the formation of 110 new churches in Glasgow between 2000 and 2016 and the key role of international immigration in boosting theological diversity and numerical church growth in the Christian landscape of contemporary Scotland.

COP26, human geography and earth futures: introduction to a theme section

ABSTRACT The rationale for this theme section on ‘COP26, human geography and earth futures’ is explained. A previous special issue of this journal – entitled ‘Climate change, COP26 and the crucible of crisis’, published during 2020 in anticipation of COP26 – is deployed to frame the specifically human-geographical concerns of the present theme section. Contributions to the theme section were initially prepared and presented in late-2021 and early-2022, around the time of COP26 itself, before then being substantially revised for publication here. The ‘placedness’ of COP26 in the city of Glasgow is important for four of the articles in this section, taking seriously certain human geographies of COP26 itself as windows on the wider problematics of climate change, its injustices and how to respond. Further aspects of understanding, imagining and representing climate change then shape the other three articles, exploring different ways in which diverse actors – with different knowledges, expertise and orientations – potentially make a difference to thinking climate change past, present and future.

Malls Mire Community Woodland: restoring biodiversity on a brownfield site, a green infrastructure project in Glasgow, Scotland

Malls Mire Local Nature Reserve, Glasgow’s first community woodland, is an interesting case study of a project that is aiming to impact all the pillars of sustainability, especially environmental protection and social equity through a community-led approach. Situated within the Toryglen area in the south of the city, the site has a varied history of agriculture, forestry, golf, and industrial development. It also has a legacy of associated pollution and dumping of waste materials. Urban Roots, the charity involved in the management of the site, has worked alongside Clyde Gateway and Glasgow City Council on a green infrastructure project. Funded through the European Regional Development Fund Green Infrastructure programme, administered through NatureScot, with additional resources from Sustrans, it has enabled large scale improvements at Malls Mire. The work which began in 2020 has connected greenspaces throughout Malls Mire, brought derelict land into positive management and also saw new Sustainable Drainage Systems ponds installed on site. The wide range of resulting benefits include improved access, increased personal safety, shared-use paths, better lighting, opportunities for outdoor recreation, education and volunteering as well as enhanced habitats and benefits for biodiversity and climate change adaptation.

The right to the unhealthy deprived city: An exploration into the impacts of state-led redevelopment projects on the determinants of mental health

Research shows mental health is impacted by poor-quality physical and social-environmental conditions. Subsequently state-led redevelopment/regeneration schemes focus on improving the physical environment, to provide better social-environmental conditions, addressing spatial and socioeconomic inequities thus improving residents' health. However, recent research suggests that redevelopment/regeneration schemes often trigger gentrification, resulting in new spatial and socioeconomic inequalities that may worsen health outcomes, including mental health, for long-term neighborhood residents. Using the right to the city and situating this within the framework of accumulation by dispossession and capitalist hegemony, this paper explores the potential mechanisms in which poor mental health outcomes may endure in neighborhoods despite the implementation of redevelopment/regeneration projects. To do so, we explored two neighborhoods in the city of Glasgow — North Glasgow and East End – and conducted a strong qualitative study based on 25 in-depth semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders.The results show that postindustrial vacant and derelict land spaces and socioeconomic deprivation in North and East Glasgow are potential mechanisms contributing to the poor mental health of its residents. Where redevelopment/regeneration projects prioritize economic goals, it is often at the expense of social(health) outcomes. Instead, economic investment instigates processes of gentrification, where long-term neighborhood residents are excluded from accessing collective urban life and its (health) benefits. Moreover, these residents are continually excluded from participation in decision-making and are unable to shape the urban environment. In summary, we found a number of potential mechanisms that may contribute to enduring poor mental health outcomes despite the existence of redevelopment/regeneration projects. Projects instead have negative consequences for the determinants of mental health, reinforcing existing inequalities, disempowering original long-term neighborhood residents and only providing the “right” to the unhealthy deprived city. We define this as the impossibility to benefit from material opportunities, public spaces, goods and services and the inability to shape city transformations.

“Recovery is fearful to me...”: Conceptualizations, concerns and hopes about personal recovery in adults who are chronically homeless

ABSTRACT This qualitative investigation explored how 18 chronically homeless adults with serious mental illness residing in emergency and temporary supportive housing facilities in Glasgow, Scotland, and New York City conceptualized personal recovery. Thirty-six interviews were conducted and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The analysis produced four superordinate themes revealing how participants engaged with, envisioned, or disidentified with, the recovery idea, in the context of chronic life adversity, co-occurring conditions, a precarious present and an uncertain future. Health and social care providers should be responsive to clients’ diverse ideas about recovery and facilitate their exploration of authentic pathways to a “good life.”

“I hope they shouldn't happen”: Social vulnerability and resilience to urban energy disruptions in a digital society in Scotland

Energy systems are changing rapidly, bringing new types of risks, and new forms of potential disruption to energy supplies. Our growing dependence on energy, particularly electricity, means that more than ever we need to plan for disruptions and be prepared for them. What happens during the disruption is important: we need to understand how individuals, communities and organisations experience the event, and what measures can be taken to reduce the overall impacts. This study investigates how people and communities in the city of Glasgow (Scotland) might respond to a lengthy, widespread disruption to energy supplies. A novel three-stage diary-interview methodology was developed to explore energy practices and expectations, and to understand how people's experience of disruptions may change in the coming decade. The results show that the most consistent determinant of participants' perceived resilience, over and above socio-demographic factors, is their expectations and their degree of dependency on routine. Our assumptions regarding people's vulnerability need to reflect the importance of digital dependency: in particular, age and income should not be seen as straightforward proxies, and the paper identifies a new set of ‘indicators of vulnerability’. Interdependent infrastructures are also crucial, yet underappreciated, and mean that people's ability to cope during a disruption will likely decrease over time in a non-linear ‘step-change’ fashion, as other sectors and services are affected. Community-level actions can improve resilience, and local scales may be more appropriate for identifying vulnerabilities than socio-demographic proxies, but this is only feasible if organisations and institutions are adequately resourced.