Glasgow: City overview

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The grey drizzle may still hang over the Clyde, but Glasgow has become a cultural hothouse. These days there's a lot more to Scotland's largest city than sandstone and shipbuilding. Charles Rennie Mackintosh's elegant Victorian center still harks back to Glasgow's days as the engine room of the British Empire. But for a long time the surrounding urban slums and deserted dockyards suggested a city in terminal post-industrial decline. Not anymore. A thriving arts community, based around the world-famous School of Art, has helped Glasgow regain its edge and spawned its own music scene: Primal Scream, Belle and Sebastian, The Jesus and Mary Chain -- not forgetting Franz Ferdinand, currently one of the hottest bands on the planet. Glasgow is still a hard city. Beyond the cultural facelift, it continues to suffer from poverty and sectarianism. But if dour-faced shipyard workers once symbolized a community in decline then perhaps Franz frontman Alex Kapranos and his bandmates embody a new Glaswegian spirit -- high on confidence and creativity.

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