Bearsden is death, according to a neighbour of mine in the North Kelvinside, aka Maryhill, area of Glasgow when his partner suggested moving to that leafy, villa-strewn suburb after their first child was born. No offence to anyone in Bearsden, but I knew what he meant. Edgy, Bearsden is not. In the end, they moved to Lenzie, which Wikipedia describes as “an affluent town by the Edinburgh and Glasgow railway”. Town? Well, maybe. It certainly has more claim to township than Bearsden, which that same oracle describes as “effectively a suburb”. Either way, we never saw them again.
My erstwhile neighbours aside, what links Bearsden and Lenzie is wealth. Another commonality — and one has to wonder if there is a connection between these two elements — is their cosy position in Glasgow but outside it. Both have Glasgow postcodes and phone numbers, but neither falls within the boundaries of the city of Glasgow, nestling instead in
East Dunbartonshire.
This means residents do not pay council tax to Glasgow city council and so can enjoy all that Glasgow has to offer without shelling out for it. It also means they escape the duty that surely accrues to any city dweller lucky enough to be affluent to alleviate poverty by contributing to the city coffers. And we all know that Glasgow has plenty of poverty to alleviate.
Many of Glasgow’s wealthier suburbs lie outwith the city boundary. Milngavie, Williamwood, Newton Mearns: all are in Glasgow but not in it when it comes paying council tax. Giffnock, which only just lost out to Stockbridge in Edinburgh as the most affluent area in Scotland in 2020, is in the same boat — a yacht perhaps. In fact, if you look at the strange squiggle that encloses the Glasgow city neighbourhoods, it is hard not to conclude that someone was hell bent on excising the wealthier suburbs from the city map.
That isn’t quite the case. Resistance to the creation of a Greater Glasgow that would incorporate wealthy suburbs such as Bearsden prevailed throughout the 20th century, with these “towns” holding out against the “Glasgow connection” in the 1920s and again in the 1970s, when the Strathclyde region was created. Glasgow’s wealthy suburbs excised themselves.
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It does seem a shame that they have been unwilling to support the city that makes them worth living in. And this week’s Cop26 event in the city has highlighted the problems with Glasgow’s slightly capricious and narrowly drawn boundaries. In many ways it has been a braw week to be a Glaswegian. Not since I stood with my elderly father during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, as fireworks exploded along the Clyde, have I felt such pride in my native city. For all the logistical hassles, it is a privilege for Glasgow to host Cop26, a joy to feel the eyes of the world on our cool and crazy city.
Few cities are as misunderstood as Glasgow. Until about five years ago I travelled regularly to London to attend investment conferences. Few were the people who managed to swallow their shock when I told them that, no, I didn’t live in Edinburgh, but in Glasgow. “I’ve actually been to Glasgow,” a delegate once told me, seeming to expect a medal for bravery or at least a pat on the back. “I stayed in a hotel somewhere in the city centre and, do you know, it was really quite nice.”
Anyone who comes from Glasgow will have heard this kind of boring, ill-informed refrain once too often. Cop26 has been an opportunity to set the record straight. Glasgow’s modern, multicultural present has been everywhere on display. It’s good that Cop26 has been a bit anarchic, with protests, strikes and the Rainbow Warrior sailing up the Clyde. That’s the Glasgow we love. Not calm. Not sedate. Not pretty. Rebellious and gritty. A cradle of the Industrial Revolution and its scarred victim when the decline came. The perfect place really for a last-chance-saloon climate summit.
It’s good too that the various versions of our government have been on show. A while back, Boris Johnson, the prime minister, told a room full of bawling supporters that he didn’t want Nicola Sturgeon anywhere near Cop26. But there the first minister is, rubbing elbows with the climate activist Greta Thunberg and speaking to CNN. There she is in Der Spiegel talking about Scotland’s green future. We’ve invited the world into our living room. They are seeing us as we are rather than being presented with a single, manicured vision of our city and country that fits one political agenda or another.
At the same time, it was clear in the run-up to Cop26 that a cash-strapped council was struggling to get the city ready for this world event. Potholed roads and rubbish-strewn pavements are perhaps not Glasgow’s biggest problems but they are emblematic of a city that is on the back foot financially. Even in normal circumstances, so much city maintenance is neglected, allowing bigger problems to develop.
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At the close of the Commonwealth Games, Prince Imran told Glasgow it had been “pure, dead brilliant”, and so it had. We pull it off. We manage. Imagine what we could do — what we could be — if we were properly funded. For that, we need those wealthy suburbs to join us. Come in, Bearsden. Your time is up.
