Our daughter, a university student in Scotland, wants desperately to attend a concert in Glascow tomorrow night. Going would involve a bus ride to Glascow and a ride home quite late at night. I think the venue is called The Garage. At this point it would be 2 girls going. I have never been to Glascow, and know nothing about how safe it is at night. At this point I am discouraging her from going--any opinions on safety from people who know Glascow? Thanks for any help.

I hate to rain on your daughters parade but a CBC (Canadian) tv report said the Glasgow was the MOST violent city in the developed world and Scotland was the developed world's most violent place - even topping the U.S. rate.

Apparently much of the violence, including 35 mainly stabbing deaths the past year, are a result of gang violence and not perpetrated against innocent bystanders ordinarily.

But they showed gangs roving thru the city centre looking for rivals to fight - visciously fight with knifes, clubs, etc.

That said, and i think Glasgowites will confirm this the concert venue will probably be totally safe but she should not probably wander around downtown on a Friday or Saturday night especially.

She is a university student and thus presumbaly fairly intelligent so i'd let her make her own decision obviously.

Again let me say i hope local Glasowites will respond as i'm sure they will say it's safe where you daughter is going - i was just reacting to 'how safe the city is at night,' and it's apparently the least safe in the developed world.

Glasgow.

Glaswegians.

Just don't mention <i>Celtic</i> or <i>Rangers</i> and you'll be safe.

Interesting that a city with 35 murders in a year is seen as more violent than my home city in the U.S. with almost ten times that figure.
(I'm not sure what the pop.of Glasgow is,but that's compared to a city of about 600k)

The city is called Glasgow and the inhabitants are called Glaswegians.

There will be hundreds of young people coming out of the concert and I expect that the bus will be full to the gunwhales.
It's not as though she will be wandering alone through Glasgow.
I'm surprised that your daughter has told you where she is going and she will probably not tell you again ;-)
I bet that if my daughter had told me half of what she got up to as a student, I would have had many a sleepless night.

&lt;Interesting that a city with 35 murders in a year is seen as more violent than my home city in the U.S. with almost ten times that figure&gt;

the violence statistics is based on violent crime - in Glasgow mainly knifings and viscious attacks and not the murder rate. Yes they said there were some 600,000 Glaswegians. TheCBC documentary showed many gang members who proudly showed off the scars from knife attacks.

You present a very alarmist view of the city. Glasgow is heavily populated by students who manage to go to rock concerts unscathed.

&lt;You present a very alarmist view of the city&gt; - yes and borne out by facts and stats that CBC reported - i was shocked yes and i hope the alarm bells are going off in Glasgow.

Alarmist because you make Glasgow sound like a no-go zone (and will panic poor DDA enormously), when the truth is no where near what you suggest.

Good grief; if she's mature enough to attend university abroad, she's mature enough to stay clear of street violence in Glesga or anywhere else.

Crime in Glasgow is an issue as it is everywhere, just as drug abuse and HIV are big issues in Edinburgh. By most countries' standards Scotland is an extraordinarily safe place.

Just spoke to my daughter, and it appears that they would not be able to get a bus home after the concert. SO...she is going to a ball at her university instead. Thank you for the help. Actually, I love Scotland and also feel that the Scottish cities are much safer than most here. I was only concerned about them possibly wandering about very late at night trying to get home. Again, thanks for the advise.

I thought there were over 1m people in Glasgow?

If the documentary is about violent crime then it's unlikely they'll show many pictures of the majority of Gaswegians who live peacefully and happily every day. Of course there's violent crime and I'm reasonably sure it's already come to the attention of the Strathclyde police. Scotland isn't a nirvana where there are kilted bagpipers on every corner and hielan' cattle strategically placed in fields for your photographic pleasure. It's a modern country trying to absorb a ridiculous number of &quot;asylum seekers&quot; and it suffers from many of the downsides of modern societies.

Nothing to do with asylum seekers - they were all Scots thru and thru - young tough poor kids from the housing projects who it said and showed often meet right in the city centre to do battle for 'pride'. So cxan't blame on asylum seekers in this case.

Kate: I agree with your cricism and in retrospect probably shouldn't have said anything a'tall - just that i just saw the CBC show and it showed these gangs running amok, beating up folk right on Queen Street in the main drag. This would give me pause about wandering about there at night though i know Glasgow must all in all be a very safe city. And if it were my daughter i'd just make sure she didn't end up wandering about at night there and i wouldn't worry at all about her going to the concert.

I'm from Detroit by the way.

I didn't blame it on asylum seekers, but they are a contributary factor to the continuing lack of jobs in Scotland.

Just for info (seeing as the OP's daughter isn't going to the concert anyway), I used to go through to Glasgow from Edinburgh for concerts all the time when I was younger (as from about age 16-17).

It's pretty common practice in Scotland, as most popular bands only play one Scottish city, so you'll get lots of young people from Glasgow going through to Edinburgh or vice versa.

I think that, had your daughter gone, she'd probably have been more surprised by the friendliness of the locals than by any violence. Let's hope she has an opportunity to visit Glasgow before she leaves Scotland - perhaps in the daytime, though, for your peace of mind!

I am sure that she will get to Glascow. ( And hopefully us also sometime when we visit her). By the way-she had little concern about their safety --it was the logistics that did in their plan. Thanks again to you all.

DDA it's Glasgow, not Glascow.

Obviously you are correct. We have never been there, though I've certainly seen the correct name many times--guess it did not register with me. My apologies to the people of Glasgow! Thanks, again.

As a Glaswegian now living in Canada, I have to say that the majority of Glasgow people are very friendly and have a sense of humour second to none, especially when compared to the much more dour Edinburgh inhabitants. Glasgow's problems stem from too much drinking and from an appalling amount of religious bigotry. There is an area in Glasgow where the average life span of an adult male is 53.5 years, compared to that in Bangladesh of around 63 years. The population used to be about one million, but many decades ago, they knocked down large parts of the city and built new towns miles away, thus reducing the population to around 600000. an enormous emigration to counties like Canada and Australia also helped the population to go down.