Do We Need to Prove Glasgow Is Friendly, or Has the World Already Been Told?

Glasgow has a reputation problem.

Unfortunately for anyone hoping to call us grim, cold, hostile, or “a bit much before 10am,” the problem is that visitors keep saying we are friendly.

This is awkward.

In 2025, Glasgow successfully defended its title as the UK’s friendliest city in the Condé Nast Traveller Readers’ Choice Awards, scoring 97.00 out of 100. In 2024, it also took the top spot with 97.14, which is not so much a score as a teacher writing “see me after class, you have become dangerously charming.”

This was not invented in a basement by someone from marketing with a pink highlighter. The city has been leaning into this for years. People Make Glasgow was created in 2013 after more than 1,500 people in 42 countries contributed their views on the city brand. More than 50 Glasgow leaders were also interviewed. The result became one of the clearest things Glasgow has ever said about itself.

The slogan worked because it was annoyingly true.

Glasgow is not friendly in a soft-focus, basket-of-shortbread way. It is friendly in the way someone at a bus stop will tell you your jacket is wrong for the weather, then explain three different ways to get where you are going, then ask who let you out dressed like that.

It is warmth with a raised eyebrow.

Now the Commonwealth Games are coming back in 2026, and the city is once again asking what face it wants to show the world. One recent campaign has called for the Met Tower near Queen Street Station, once home to the huge People Make Glasgow banner, to be reimagined with fresh artwork ahead of the Games. The old vinyl has faded and peeled, which is a little on the nose for a city that likes a global welcome but sometimes stores it behind scaffolding.

Still, Glasgow knows how to perform welcome when it matters.

It also knows how to look suspiciously like somewhere else.

This month, plenty of Glaswegians will go to the cinema for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, not only because they are Marvel devotees, although some absolutely will be wearing the emotional support hoodie, but because the film used Glasgow as a stand-in for New York. Production began in Glasgow in August 2025, with city streets transformed for the next Spider-Man outing.

For locals, half the fun will be spotting what the CGI masters have not quite erased. A corner. A building line. A familiar street pretending to be Manhattan while still somehow looking like it might lead to a Greggs.

Because apparently Glasgow is not just friendly.

It is now the city superheroes want to live in.

Ask Boston, too.

During the 2026 World Cup, Scotland’s Tartan Army arrived in the United States and somehow turned football disappointment into soft-power diplomacy with bagpipes. FIFA described Boston as welcoming Scotland fans with open arms, and the bond between the city and the travelling support became part of the tournament’s wider story.

The team may not always trouble the trophy engraver, but the fans tend to leave an impression. Scotland has made a national art form out of arriving somewhere, singing loudly, being adopted by locals, and leaving behind a baffled bartender with a saltire and several new emotional commitments.

And this is the thing about Scotland.

We are small.

National Records of Scotland put Scotland’s population at 5,546,900 in mid-2024. That is smaller than many world cities, and yet the idea of Scotland gets absolutely everywhere.

The Scottish Government’s Scottish Connections Framework says upwards of 40 million people around the world consider themselves to have Scottish ancestry. Many more have a Scottish connection by choice, affection, accident, study, work, family, football, whisky, Outlander, or one suspicious great-grandmother from Paisley who has been doing heavy genealogical lifting since 1983.

So perhaps Glasgow does not need to prove it is friendly.

Perhaps the world has already done that for us.

But The Speaker is not here to hand out civic medals without checking the stitching.

We want to know what friendliness actually means now. Is it a slogan? A civic reflex? A tourist-board myth that accidentally became true? Are we really welcoming, or just very good at giving strangers directions while insulting their footwear?

With the Commonwealth Games coming, visitors will arrive again. Cameras will point at the city. Commentators will say “vibrant” until the word needs first aid. Somebody will mention the weather. Somebody will show a mural. Somebody will find a Glaswegian who can compress hospitality, sarcasm, and life advice into one sentence outside Central Station.

And the world may rediscover what Glasgow already knows.

People make Glasgow.

But Glasgow also makes people talk to each other.

Which, in 2026, may qualify as radical infrastructure.

Sources

Condé Nast Traveller: UK’s friendliest citieshttps://www.cntraveller.com/gallery/friendliest-cities-in-uk

Glasgow Life: People Make Glasgow and the 2014 Commonwealth Games legacyhttps://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/glasgow-2014-commonwealth-games-legacy/people-make-glasgow-during-glasgow-2014

MadeBrave: Transform the People Make Glasgow Met Building for the 2026 Commonwealth Gameshttps://madebrave.com/blog/transform-the-people-make-glasgow-met-building-for-2026-commonwealth-games/

FIFA: Scotland fans and Boston bond during the 2026 World Cuphttps://www.fifa.com/en/tournaments/mens/worldcup/canadamexicousa2026/articles/scotland-fans-boston-bond

National Records of Scotland: Scotland’s population over 5.5 million peoplehttps://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/latest-news/scotland-s-population-over-55-million-people/

Scottish Government: Scottish Connections Frameworkhttps://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-connections-framework/pages/2/