Glasgow experienced its first economic boom after the passage of the Treaty of Union in 1707, which gave Scottish merchants access to English imperial markets, including those in the American colonies. Tobacco became the cash crop that gave Glasgow its first taste of real money – its ships could cross the Atlantic faster than those from any English port.

By 1730 Glasgow’s tobacco lords had become Scotland’s first millionaires. Although the shallow Clyde was dredged and rechanneled in the 1770s, allowing large vessels to sail into the city for the first time, the tobacco market crashed after the American War of Independence, when the plantation owners began dealing directly with European importers. Trading with the Caribbean continued, however, and cotton joined the list of commodities traded, including tobacco, spices, sugar and slaves.

In many ways, Glasgow became a laboratory for the Scottish Enlightenment. Adam Smith, chair of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, pioneered economic theory. James Watt, an instrument maker for the University of Glasgow, perfected the steam engine. James Neilson helped transform the iron industry by developing the hot- blast furnace.

The population of Glasgow boomed during the Victorian Age from 77,000 in 1801 to nearly 800,000 at the end of the century. Thanks to wealthy merchants willing to invest in new industries and a university pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge, industries like shipbuilding, the mining of iron and coal, chemicals and optical instruments, developed rapidly in the 19th century.

Glasgow’s onetime claim to being the "second city of the Empire," collapsed after WWI with the sharp decline of the ship-building industry. The 1935 bestseller, "No Mean City" enforced the stereotype of a violent city of tenements, razor gangs and hard drinking. The Gorbals area, in particular, became notorious as a slum.

But the city’s image has radically changed over the last two decades, with a resurgent cultural and arts scene, a thriving tourism industry and Glasgow’s yearlong party as European Capital of Culture in 1990. While old tenements still exist, the city has sandblasted clean many of its grand Victorian buildings and also erected futuristic space-age structures like the Science Centre and the so-called "armadillo," as the Clyde Auditorium is called.

Successful redevelopment along the riverfront has attracted the attention of city planners from around the world.

Still, the economic boom has not penetrated to those at the bottom of the economy: Glasgow residents still have lower life expectancy and one of the highest murder rates in Europe.