In the 1950s Glasgow’s population numbered 1,000,000. Today the figure is around 600,000. Such a dramatic drop in population has had a profound effect on the city’s infrastructure. Large swathes of land around the central business and retail area are empty. Further out, land once occupied by industry is similarly abandoned – or in some cases redeveloped with modern low-cost light industrial units. Even further out, on the city’s periphery, lie vast postwar council housing estates, blocks of flats built to replace inner-city slums. These too have suffered from abandonment and are variously being refurbished, left as they are, or demolished. In some areas as few as 10 per cent of these flats are still occupied.