GLASGOW must move away from being defined by its heavy industrial past if it is to be a modern competitive city of the future, new research has recommended.

The Scotland’s Urban A.G.E cities report said Glasgow is Scotland’s only metropolitan city.

Report author, Brian Evans,from the Glasgow Urban Laboratory, said: “We must desist from talking about Glasgow as post-industrial and start talking about a proto-knowledge city.”

He said that the city has a “super-concentrated” knowledge geography with three universities based in the city centre and west end and knowledge-based businesses in the Blythswood Square area and international financial services district in the Bothwell Street and Atlantic Quay areas.

He added: “This is a knowledge city.”

The call was echoed by Stuart Patrick, chief executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce.

He said: “We need to change the narrative of Glasgow struggling to cope with post industrial change.”

The report recognised Glasgow’s regeneration and its success in retail and sport.

Mr Patrick however added“Important as they are Glasgow is more than shopping, sport and leisure. We should be talking about science, engineering and manufacturing.

“Glasgow built its success on industry and I have no doubt it can do it again.”

The report recognised the challenges the city faced however, and housing and transport were two of the key issues requiring attention.

It showed that compared to other cities most people working in Glasgow’s ‘knowledge economy’ live in surrounding council areas.

It stated that not enough new affordable and rented housing was being built .

A recommendation was that Glasgow needed to accelerate and diversify housebuilding.

Mr Evans said the local network was a “long way short” of what people needed.

Councillor Greg Hepburn, Deputy Convener for Liveability, said the future of city centre living was a “huge challenge”.

He said one weakness was the low population of the city centre.

He said “We need affordable built to rent. We need a city centre built for people.”

He pointed to regeneration developments at the Commonwealth games athletes’ village in Dalmarnock, the current transformation of Sighthill and previously at Crown Street in Gorbals as success stories.