Investment disparity Edinburgh v Glasgow

[okright]

Don't you notice a massive difference in the infrastructure and building works?

I realised Edinburgh is the capital, but the Glasgow city decline in comparison to Edinburgh is apparent.

What about the respective airports?
So obvious when you compare them.

Glasgow Airport needs a link to the city centre like Edinburgh has. The taxi drivers here must love it.

It's quite depressing.

Aberdeen is similar

Agree, Glasgow and Aberdeen are grim these days.

I live in Edinburgh, potholes and weeds in the kerbstones all round where I live. In the park “rewilding” is fine, beds (the ones that are remaining) full ofqssive nettles less so. But the tourists won’t see it (unless they’re walking from their AirBnBs) so am sure the Coucil give zero fucks.

Exactly @Henrythehappypig
It's all about the tourist money!

Good article in The Bell last week. It was specifically addressing the hiving off of East Ren etc from the city when the Strathclyde Regional Council was abolished in 1994, leaving Glasgow City with high poverty/low council tax base rather than a comparison between Glasgow and Edinburgh but it raised some really interesting points about Glasgow’s finances I had never been aware of.

“The city is impacted by other anomalies. It has several galleries and a library of national standing which, like Edinburgh’s, are free to enter but unlike Edinburgh’s (and V&A Dundee), receive no Scottish Government money. It also owns the Clyde Tunnel, the only piece of national road infrastructure which is not centrally funded. “

The first set of anomalies the article mentions are the settling of the equal pay award, the fact that Glasgow is the largest dispersal city for asylum seekers in Scotland and the fact it has a higher than average level of Council tax exemption (25%).

Fifteen years ago Glasgow was the main airport for Scotland and Edinburgh was a bit of a backwater airport. The positions have totally swapped now.

i am lucky enough to live in a ‘naice’ part of the city so I am relatively insulated, and generally eat, drink and shop locally to me, but I feel so sad when I ‘go into town’. I’ve lived in Glasgow since 1993 and even before that used to come shopping on the train when I was at school and was always such an exciting, vibrant city. It feels so dead now. Something has gone terribly wrong.

Didn't know that. Wonder why. I agree with what you're saying.

Getting slightly off the topic of investment disparity, but the breakup of Strathclyde Regional Council killed Glasgow financially. It’s just been a slow death. It ridiculously obvious when you look at a current council boundary map. The level of gerrymandering under the Tories (namely Ian Lang, Secretary of State for Scotland at the at time) would make a Republican Congressman blush.

If you look at map below the intent is stark. From the top going clockwise:
red areas within Glasgow council area: Drumchapel, Possil, Shettleston/Bailieston, Castlemilk, Darnley/bits of Thornliebank

green areas now outwith Glasgow council area: Bearsden, Bishopbriggs, Burnside/Cambuslang, Giffnock/Clarkston.

I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

This 100%

Yes, dismantling Strathclyde Regional Council has been a massive blow to Glasgow. Tax money was pooled from wealthy areas and spread across Greater Glasgow. Because Strathclyde had the power to resist the privatisation of Scottish Water, Thatcher took revenge by splitting the council into smaller areas. This meant all the wealthier areas kept their taxes. Glasgow has reduced funding as most of the deprived areas that need the most help but contribute the least in council tax are within its boundary.

East Renfrewshire became one of the new smaller council areas. Compared to Glasgow, it is mostly comprised of wealthy residents. They have been able to fund their education system so well that they have most of the best-performing schools in Scotland.

For a while, Glasgow intentionally built infrastructure to ensure those in the wealthier areas would drive into Glasgow and spend money here. Now that in-person shopping is declining, that revenue is going. We now have a situation where the wealthier environs of Greater Glasgow expect to use certain parts of its infrastructure but don't contribute towards its upkeep or investment. Some additional external funding is now coming from the Home Office for the upkeep of Asylum seekers. But, that's putting a strain on infrastructure too. It's a tricky predicament, especially after settling the pay issues with the previous administration.

I totally agree with much of this, east Ren and east dun, well the more urban parts anyway, should probably have been included in the city boundaries.

But I do think it’s a bit unfair that these residents are all accused of ‘sponging’ from Glasgow through socialising and working there.

All cities have that situation, there will be a lot more people in the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire counties doing that than East Dun.

The Home Counties/Essex do exactly the same thing with London as do East/West Lothian with Edinburgh.

It’s part of being an economic hub.

Plus do you really think having the comparatively tiny population of East Renfrewshire paying council tax would make that much of a difference?

Everyone thinks of Giffnock and Mearns but East Ren has many deprived areas to fund too, the largest ratio of children and huge schools to run.

The difference would be minimal.

Don’t have much of an opinion on whether it should happen or not but it won’t be the magic bullet.

Just read the article in The Glasgow Bell.

Didn’t realise it was Dani Garavelli that wrote it.

The cynic in me wonders why she’s suddenly had an attack of conscience on this, given the fact her children have all now finished their education at one of the better known East Ren schools.

There’s so little building work in Glasgow compared to Edinburgh. Why is that not a major shame to the snp. If we can’t balance investment across the tiny country with a handful of cities- how can they criticise “Westminster” of the same

The majority of council funding comes centrally from scotgov, think about 60% and the other 40% is half and half business rates and domestic council tax so the populace of an area and how much council tax they pay doesn't have the impact you might think. In a city I'd imagine the ratio of business and domestic is more weighted to business than it will be in more suburban areas.

So, we know that central funding has been squeezed along with I believe more people proportionally relying on public sector employment along with council tax freezes etc which will affect services across the board.

The difference will be the ability to attract business who will be investing in infrastructure as well as paying rates. Business rely on having a skilled workforce and access to customers if it's a f2f business.

Whether Edinburgh or Glasgow are managing their money or attracting business better or if there is poor management at play I guess we'd need to dig deeper to see.