What is Cydeside Urban?
Clydeside Urban is an independent website exploring neighborhoods and community life across Clydeside.
Clydeside refers to the urban area that follows the River Clyde in west-central Scotland. This covers Glasgow and Renfrewshire and the bits that connect them.
The aim of the site is to share some thoughts and ideas about how areas across Clydeside work, and how they could work better, through general observations and use of local data.
Who runs this site?
My name is Graeme Smith and I’ve lived in Renfrew my whole life.
I love to visit cities around the world and see how people live, use public space, and interact with their surroundings. I like seeing how culture changes from place to place.
Many cities I’ve visited have amazing public transport, beautiful public spaces, and streets designed for people rather than just cars. Some places seem like they were intentionally designed to encourage people to meet up and be social. Other places have forced me to appreciate their natural beauty and architecture.
I often get frustrated by how many of these features are missing, underdeveloped, or not considered back home. It makes me wonder how different things could be if we adopted some of the great ideas I’ve seen in the cities and places I’ve visited. These thoughts (and frustrations) have led to the creation of this site.
My background is in psychology. I completed a PhD in 2016 and I’ve been working as a researcher in the public sector ever since, a job that I’m very grateful for. I’m also keenly interested in data science, particularly data visualisation and data-driven storytelling. Another reason I’ve created this site is to get better at these things.
I hope you find something of interest! 🙂