Conflict in the social representation of place : the cases of Gorbals and Alma-Gare

Abstract

The issues of foundation myths, architecture and public monuments have almost exclusively been dealt with as elements in the process of identity building for the region or the nation. The aim of this chapter is to consider these issues at a different scale, in an attempt to understand how local communities construct their own identity and, in turn, attempt to have this identity recognised and accepted by other actors. I shall draw upon two examples of neighborhood construction. Both of these date from the period 1950 to 1980, which saw slum clearance and industrial construction techniques initially heralds as the panacea for the housing crisis in western European countries, and subsequently derided as key factors in the destruction of urban community life.One example considers the neighborhood of Alma-Gare in Roubaix, a town in the north of France that, along neighboring Lille and Tourcoing once formed the centre of the French textile industry. The other example is formed drawn from Scotland, and considers the Gorbals, a deprived area of Glasgow that, until its demolition in the course of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, housed some of the poorest sections of the city's population