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There are few better examples of the power of public relations than the transformation of image of the city of Glasgow. For decades Glasgow was widely associated with hard drinking, pub brawling, massive unemployment and decaying housing estates. Now it is at the crest of Scottish culture, a leader in the popular renaissance of fashion and a focus for theatre and the arts. There are few people who visit Glasgow nowadays who don't come away with a warm affection for the place.
Social problems were endemic in this city, in large part due to the demise of the once great steel and shipbuilding industries. These ruled the banks of the Clyde for many decades but faltered in the Depression of the 1930s and gradually faded away between the 1950s and 70s.
These industries relied on tough, hard working characters, plate-metal workers, welders and riveters who turned out the world's finest locomotives and ocean liners. Drinking was always the shipyard worker's favourite hobby and it must have been a terrible knock to their pride as well as their pay-packet to see these great enterprises go down the river, so to speak.
Following years of stagnation, the city had began to accept that shipbuilding and its associated industries were gone for good and new directions had to be found. In the early 1980s the 'Glasgow's Miles Better' campaign started. People who knew the city viewed the campaign with incredulity but soon it gained momentum and support.
By 1988 the Glasgow Garden Festival had brought hundreds of thousands of visitors to the town and the transformation was complete when the city became the 'European City of Culture' in 1990. 1999 marked another milestone when the city became "UK City of Architecture and Design'.
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