Sustainable Plot-Based Urban Regeneration and Traditional Master Planning Practice in Glasgow

The failure of conventional, post-war development to bring about the housing-led regeneration of much of Glasgow’s vacant and derelict inner-city land has exacerbated the loss of middle-income households to car-dominated suburbs built on green-field sites. Plot-based urbanism offers an innovative approach to development, based on an urban structure made up of fine-grained elements, in the form of plots, capable of incremental development by a range of agencies. The historical and morphological study of traditional, pre-war masterplanning methods in Glasgow suggests that a typically disaggregated pattern of land subdivision remains of great relevance for development, and that the physical form and organisation of urban land may relate to the capacity for neighbourhood self-organisation. This study assists future masterplanning and investment in the regeneration of inner-city neighbourhoods by suggesting ways of making investment more informed, and the development process more responsive to urban change. We argue that the publicly-funded sector could take on the role of lead provider of development opportunity through the adoption of methods derived from traditional masterplanning processes, providing opportunities for small-scale house building, and thereby supporting resilient and adaptable communities in the sustainable reuse of vacant inner-city land.