Govanhill (Scottish Gaelic: Cnoc a' Ghobhainn) is an area of Glasgow, Scotland, situated south of the River Clyde between Pollokshields, the Gorbals, Strathbungo, Crosshill, Polmadie and Queen's Park.

The buildings have been converted and still stand today - the school is now for younger age groups as St Brides Primary, the others are apartments;[17] The nearest fire station is still fairly close at Polmadie,[13] a short distance to the north of the modern police office at Aikenhead Road.

This program saw older tenement housing in 29 inner-city neighbourhoods (including nearby Pollokshaws and the Gorbals) demolished and replaced with new non-traditional buildings, typically high rise or deck-access apartments of a lower density, with large proportions of the existing communities dispersed to new estates at the edge of Glasgow such as Pollok and Castlemilk, or to Scotland's new towns – e.g. East Kilbride and Cumbernauld.

[21] The community action at that time allowed Govanhill to retain their period housing stock and public buildings, the majority of which was built between 1890 and 1912,[22] including examples from famous Scottish architects such as Alexander "Greek" Thomson and James Robert Rhind.

[23][24] In combination with housing issues, the district has been known at times as a place where levels of recorded crime and violence are higher than the national average, owing to its history as a destination for migrants of low means and high population density.

[25] Under Section 28 of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014 and in order to tackle problems in the private rented sector, four tenement blocks within South West Govanhill were designated an Enhanced Enforcement Area (EEA) in September 2015.

[27][28] As a result, some of the housing in the area has been improved, with Glasgow City Council seizing property that failed to achieve the required standard and removing rogue landlords (many of whom had allowed their properties to be occupied by dangerously high numbers of poor, newly arrived immigrants with few other housing options, the flats often lacking basic utilities such as running water) from the Scottish Landlord Register.

[29][30][31][32][33] This ongoing programme is scheduled to be continue for several years until the properties in the sector are brought up to required modern standards and occupied in a responsible manner.

[34][35][36][37] Govanhill is home to one of Glasgow's original Carnegie libraries, designed in the Edwardian Baroque style by James Robert Rhind.

Migration started with people from the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland; from England (workers from Shropshire to carry new techniques at the iron works);[48] from Ireland (particularly County Donegal);[49] Italians;[50] Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe;[51][52] people from the Punjab and other parts of the Indian sub-continent;[53] Glasgow's new communities of former asylum seekers and refugees and – most recently – migrants benefiting from Enlargement of the European Union originating from Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic (2004) and Romania and Bulgaria (2007).

[23][5] Concerns over issues such as violent sexual crime, child exploitation and human trafficking became more prevalent since increased migration of the Roma community into Govanhill from Eastern Europe,[56][57][58] with numerous reports of women and children being prostituted and arrests made by the police in the area for related offences on multiple occasions.

[63] At the end of that year, social media videos alleging widespread and ongoing child abuse by the Roma community in Govanhill which were viewed by thousands prompted denials from the police, local groups and Nicola Sturgeon.

[64][65][66][67][68][69] Footage of squalor and accumulation of dangerous waste in back courts and common closes, itself by no means a new problem in the area,[70][71][72] was more readily identifiable in the videos, though it was apparent that this was exacerbated to an extent by the pandemic which had disrupted regular and by-request refuse collection services, and indeed in that same week community groups staged a protest at the rubbish problem by collecting black bags and leaving them at the front gates of Queen's Park.

[78] Despite this focus on the south west of the district the highest levels of multiple deprivations exist within North Govanhill, particularly in the predominantly social housing area to the east of Cathcart Road.

Planning approval was granted for a mixed leisure and retail development at the demolished Larkfield bus depot near Eglinton Toll (latterly occupied by First Glasgow), but this eventually became one of several residential projects in the north of the district constructed in the late 2010s.

[83][84][85][86] A retail park did open nearby in the same period at Crown Street on the southern edge of the neighbouring Gorbals district,[87] adjacent to the replacement First Bus headquarters on Caledonia Road[88] – filling much of the expanse of derelict land which had created something of a physical 'buffer' between the two inner-city areas for several decades.