Progress

Glasgow was at the forefront of research into the effects of poverty and bad living conditions on population health. Glasgow was also at the forefront of public intervention programmes that were to greatly benefited the population’s health.

Thus by the time of the Bruce Report, as the films and clips in this section show, a precedent for public action for public benefit had been set. The city council, the Corporation of Glasgow, were to intervene in housing as it had in health.

...Health and Planning

In the existing unplanned town or city the main lines of progress are along the direction of child welfare, improved facilities for treatment of disease, and free medical attention for all. However good those things are of themselves they attack the problems as they emerge above ground and do not have much effect on the root causes. The more ample provision of open space (implying a reduction in the number of houses per acre) would reduce the number of child welfare centres and hospitals required and curtail the need for medical attention. It would do these things with advantage to the economic position of the local finances on which the existing ever-increasing need for more and still more health and welfare provisions is a steady drain. Beyond that, the provision of more open space and room to live would bring added pleasure of living to citizens an improve the amenity in which they dwell.

First Planning Report, 1945, Conclusion, page 64

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