What urban planners in Thessaloniki like about the Gorbals district of Glasgow is that they tore it down and built it back up.

After visiting the Gorbals in February, Thanasis Pappas, vice president of the Greek Planning Ministry's Organisation for Urban and Environmental Planning, says western swathes of Greece's second-largest city need similar treatment.

From rags to redevelopment

"The Gorbals had poor architecture, alienation, unemployment and crime in the 1980s and 90s," explains Pappas. He was one of many Greek officials who toured not just Glasgow, but also Edinburgh, Newcastle and London to get ideas for their town. "In Glasgow they set up a company and decided on complete renewal for the Gorbals," he tells GreeceNow. "We like that."

Pappas' organisation and an umbrella of other groups in Thessaloniki want to develop the Lachanokipi, the site of forgotten tanneries and much land outside the building zone.

They also want to revitalise what planners have dubbed the Western Arc, an area that needs attention, Pappas says, because of its "poverty and unemployment."

The Western Arc is home to four bases the military is closing down and giving to the city and to disused tobacco warehouses.

Military moving out

"We have to figure out what to do with them," says Pappas. "Housing, stadiums, swimming pools, pedestrian districts, parks, art museums, and an art school" are all possibilities.

The government is taking bids from Greek and foreign consultants to come up with plans for the area, and ways of finding cash to supplement European Union and local funds that exist to carry them out.

Paulina Lampsa, adviser to the Macedonia-Thrace minister, calls the Western Arc "the basic axis in the strategic plan for viable development of Thesslaoniki."

Plans for nearby Lachanokipi and Echedoro, she adds, must be incorporated into the renewal schemes for the Western Arc, which are being handled by the Northwest Thessaloniki Urban Regeneration Project.

"The regeneration programme includes projects to build infrastructure, control the flow of streams, put the bases to use, create jobs, encourage enterprise, support vulnerable groups of people, and promote sports and culture."