“When you become a city that has to give hospitality to the experiences of trauma and torture, and become a world city – not one that has sent people out as traumatised bodies as happened from the clearances and the poverty of the 1930s in Glasgow – but actually starts to receive that back in the early 20th Century, then your narrative as a city has to change, and change is always a really tricky process.”
dispersal
The role of asylum in processes of urban gentrification
In 2013, the organisers of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games announced that the demolition of Glasgow’s infamous Red Road flats would form the grand finale of the Games’ Opening Ceremony. Where had once been a symbol of Glasgow’s ’regeneration’ from its post-industrial past, they had more recently been known for their decline.
Reclaiming the local? Asylum accommodation provision in Scotland
Reports last week that local authorities participating in the Dispersal Scheme are considering withdrawing from the Scheme are alarming but perhaps not surprising. Dispersal is a programme run by the UK government to accommodate asylum seekers in locations across the UK on a no-choice basis. Since its implementation at the turn of the Millennium, it has attracted controversy, especially around issues relating to the housing of asylum seekers.