When I was asked to write a piece about Glasgow I realised how little I knew about it. At one time it was known as one of the poorest and most deprived cities in the UK, somewhere with no inward investment, housing estates that police wouldn’t dare to control, deprivation, epidemic drug-taking and a dying industrial wasteland. Added to this, at the turn of the 20th century almost half of the children in the city were living in poverty and a quarter had not a single formal qualification.

But hold on there! Wasn’t this the city that had played host to the largest shipbuilding companies in the world? A hugely successful city, once one of the most prosperous and thriving in the UK in the 19th and 20th centuries throughout the second World War right up to the 1960s? Yes, this is the same city and therein lays its fundamental problems. It took too long to adapt to changing dynamics in a fast moving new industrial order.

Historically it is a very cultured, if measured city. Learning was highly encouraged. Mackintosh and The School of Art, Thomson and many great architects, the Arts and Craft Movements, the Scottish school of artists, some of the biggest charitable benefactors – Glasgow had it all. And then it all went terribly wrong for a number of decades.

There is no doubting that the arts have contributed hugely to Glasgow’s subsequent turnaround into the thriving and buoyant economic and cultural centre of activity that it is today. There is evidence all around: the regeneration of existing buildings now put to innovative use, the construction of several award-winning new buildings, exciting exhibitions, art and music shows of all kinds, urban regeneration of exhibition centres and museums, as well as international congresses and conferences.

Scotland has the highest number of companies in multimedia and broadcasting, arts publishing and the creative sector outside of London, and much of this is concentrated in Glasgow. The wider international audience is attracted to display their art installations and shows in spaces such as the Tramway and The Lighthouse and free-access galleries such as Kelvingrove and the Burrell Collection. A café culture is expected to spring up on the south side of the river Clyde. The Science Centre is already a popular tourist attraction. Glasgow is also currently seen as being in the forefront of the music scene with a plethora of culturally diversified bands and live-music shows, whose performers either emanate or perform in the city more than anywhere in Scotland.

So there you have it. Here is such a prime example of where regeneration has given a city a new lease of life, not only culturally but economically and aesthetically, making use of its historic past, harnessing all these cultural platforms and applying them to real use, thus recreating this city as a vibrant engine room, and somewhere you’re sorry to leave.