East Kilbride, Scotland's first new town, born in 1947, once known as The Town of Tomorrow
more... In the spirit of flaneurism these photographs were all made during three hours of wandering through the town of tomorrow. They are sequenced in the order in which they were made. The maker has walked the streets of this town for fifty years.
After WWII the UK government decided to tackle housing shortages and deprivation within Scotland’s industrialised central belt through a program of building new towns. The first of these was East Kilbride, referred to as The Town of Tomorrow. The town planners had a vision of prosperous new settlements full of skilled workers relocated from overcrowded cities such as Glasgow. As traditional heavy industries declined, government offered incentives to encourage light industries to establish within the new towns. The population of East Kilbride grew rapidly from 2,400 in 1947 to 72,000 in 1980. Since then, under neo-liberalism, it has hardly grown at all. Light industries have faltered and a major investment plan to regenerate the town centre was shelved after the financial crisis of 2008. The stalled condition of East Kilbride, the town of tomorrow, symbolises the failure of UK urban planning policy. Today, Scotland’s future hangs in the balance as it contemplates independence.