Last week we received an e-mail enquiring about how safe Glasgow is as a city.
I thought it would be helpful to publish the response to that enquiry – written by one of our postgraduate e-mentors. Anyway, here is the edited version -
‘…yes, you’re right. Glasgow is just like any other city. Like London, you’ll be safe if you know the regions and stay street-smart. Glasgow University and its student accommodations are situated in the West End, which is clean and quiet. The city is quite proud of the West End for its generally up-scale atmosphere. As an American student at Glasgow for the last two years, I’ve felt safe, secure and happy here, and I don’t think you’ll need to worry. The West End is best characterized by its coffee shops, Kelvingrove Park and the Botanic Gardens, and Kelvingrove Museum. On top of that, it is big enough to have everything you need for shopping, study and entertainment as a student. The main shopping street is Byres Rd, which also has many restaurants and a few bars for a mature nightlife scene.The other main regions are City Centre, the East End and the South. City Centre, with its renowned pedestrian shopping streets and tourism spots is much more busy and metropolitan. There are a lot of cultural attractions, including cinema, opera, theatre and modern art. It is also the buzzing centre of nightlife activity on weekends, with many trendy bars and nightclubs on the pedestrian streets. According to the newest article I could find on crime in Glasgow, this weekend activity is where Glasgow got its reputation for crime – and the police are visibly cracking down it every weekend. (I also found the articles about high crime in Glasgow are mostly from 2002 and 2003.) The BBC News article from Nov. 2006 is here:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6187292.stm. The residential East End and some parts of the South are on the rough side and should be avoided at night.Some links to check out More information than you’ll ever want on Glasgow (plus the majorregions):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlasgowAn excellent interactive map of the city:http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=55.853304~-4.2982&style=r&lvl=
As a fourth year student, i must say i pretty much always feel safe in Glasgow. As the post points out, there are some dodgy areas, and no-go areas, like any large city. If you stick to the west-end, the city centre, and the merchant city will be fine! Glaswegians are generally very friendly. When you arrive, you soon find out and get told the places to go, and the places to avoid. As Glasgow has a large student population you generally find safety in numbers in terms of going out, and just be sensible in terms of going home at night.