From Jan Karpinski
The connections drawn by Harry Burns between public health, child development and social welfare are important and deserve respect (24 January, p 26).
However we should not accept the narrative that attributes poor public health in Glasgow to the de-industrialisation of the 1970s and 1980s. Shipbuilding and steelmaking were physically hard and hazardous occupations. They may have provided a living wage, but it is difficult to see them as a source of general joy, health and well-being.
De-industrialisation has contributed to, rather than detracted from, better public health throughout the UK. The question is why Glasgow has reaped fewer benefits and suffered more detriments from de-industrialisation than any other city in the UK (and possibly any other city in Europe).
It is now over 30 years since Glasgow’s reinvention as a tourist destination under the “Glasgow’s Miles Better” campaign, and exactly 25 years since it became the UK’s first European Capital of Culture.
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If lack of a sense of purpose is the problem in Glasgow, why has it failed to find a new one? Perhaps the root causes of Glasgow’s low life expectancy are as much anthropological as economic or political.
Shepton Mallet, Somerset, UK
