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Recent years has seen Glasgow regularly appear on the list of must-visit places in the UK and Europe, thanks to a combination of warm locals, a great food, drink and live music scene which rivals any other city on the continent.

Not to mention a host of free museums, galleries and exhibition spaces that help showcase the creative talents of the local population and enhance it's reputation as a vibrant and eclectic city that has moved on dramatically from its by-gone status as one consumed by violence, overcrowding and poverty.

And part of its attraction is that, despite being only 42 miles from the nation's capital, it feels like a completely different city to Edinburgh in plenty of respects - not least the people that populate it.

As the old saying goes, "You'll have more fun at a Glasgow funeral than at an Edinburgh wedding".

Yet is the much-welcomed and much-needed rise in visitor numbers to the city incidentally working to erase this distinct identity that seems to be apparent to anyone who visited the city centres of both Edinburgh and Glasgow?

One of a Glasgow full of high-end retailers and quirky, independent shops and an Edinburgh, on the opposite end of the spectrum, choc-full of tartan, shortbread tin stocking tourist shops in a city that feels itself like a giant one?

Its no secret that outwith Buchanan Street , Glasgow's retail outlook is looking in dire need of a new lease of life, as streets in the city centre become populated with Vaping shops, pound stores and shops selling American candy.

And it's in this environment that the tacky, souvenir shops have flourished, as high rent prices price out the local retailers and more high-street name chain stores graduate to the out of town shopping malls such as Silverburn.

It seems that with increasing regularity shops are popping up in the city centre, and with that the sound of bagpipe instrumentals of Avicii, the Bay City Rollers and Kings Of Leon only seems to be getting louder and louder as you walk down the street as they replace the shops that were there before them.

Shops such as Tartan Plus and Tartan House of Scotland on Buchanan Street, Pride of Glasgow on Sauchiehall Street, I Love Glasgow on Argyle Street and Heritage of Scotland on Union Street to name just a few.

The retail spaces that sell all sorts of novelty tees, Celtic jewellery, Highland Cow memorabilia and all things tartan.

Shops that, while they no doubt provide plenty of souvenirs for tourists to take home from their travels as mementos of their time in Glasgow, don't reflect the general mood and feel of a city that is characterised as being (at least in the eyes of locals) everything that Edinburgh isn't.

Perhaps city authorities should encourage more independent retailers to open up shop in the city centre before Glasgow's retail scene really dies a death and the once bustling streets turn into proper shopping no-go areas.

Or else, castle-aside, we might end up with a city that can only be distinguishable from Edinburgh by way of the people who call it home.

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