JIM SPENCE: Why are Dundonians reserved when it comes to eulogising our great city?

Dundee needs to be more like Glasgow when it comes to shouting from the rooftops about the good things in the city.

The two cities are historically very similar, sharing a proud industrial working-class history.

Shipbuilding, engineering and factory work shaped both.

But Glasgow has made more of its heritage than we have simply by shouting about it more loudly.

We also share similar demographics, with the historic Irish immigration to both areas still obvious today.

But Dundee – unlike its brasher counterpart in the west – has traditionally hidden its light under a bushel.

While the citizens of the dear green place wax lyrical at every opportunity that Glasgow is smiles better, as their famous public relations campaign claimed.

Dundonians have traditionally been much more reserved when it comes to eulogising our city and the many great things about living here.

‘Dundee underrepresented on TV and radio’

Glaswegians are gushingly garrulous in boasting about their attractions.

My Gran moved here from Dennistoun, with her mother and two sisters.

She never liked Dundee but her sisters and mum wouldn’t return to that part of the world – they loved it here.

Glasgow is a great place and I was a regular visitor as a BBC broadcaster, but I always felt they talked their city up in a way that we didn’t.

I think things are changing though.

The gallus approach to life that has marked Glasgow out has been helped by the national broadcasters BBC and STV being based there and, unwittingly or not, tending to over represent the city as a microcosm of Scotland.

That has often meant cities like Dundee have been sorely underrepresented on television and radio.

But in a world of modern social media, the power of those institutions is waning.

In a modern age of communication, we can tell our own story without it being filtered through folk who wouldn’t know Lochee from Linlathen or the Ferry from Fintry.

And that message has been spreading far and wide with magazines and newspapers in the UK and further afield regularly trumpeting the joys and benefits of Dundee, having belatedly discovered us.

I came across a handful of travel documentaries on YouTube the other night, each singing the praises of the city.

If you come from some of the big conurbations in England where you seldom see the countryside, the compactness and open vistas of Dundee, with the hills as a backdrop and the River Tay in the foreground, is a treasure which we’ve often underappreciated.

‘New dawning of optimism’

Cynics might wince at regular descriptions of Dundee as Scotland’s coolest little city but we should embrace the eulogies while they last.

Dundee, like every other place, has its problems but sometimes it’s darkest just before the dawn.

And I sense a new dawning of optimism and confidence about the city.

The long-awaited debut of Livehouse in May, in the old Green’s Playhouse in Nethergate, will eventually see Dundee host the third biggest music and events venue in Scotland.

With a revitalised Overgate, a surge in new eating places, ambitious plans for a college campus in the Wellgate, Slessor Gardens attracting big name acts, and Dundee FC hoping to build their new stadium, there’s a sense of energy and vitality in the city.

Dundee gave Glasgow its two anthems, with Michael Marra penning Mother Glasgow, and Will Fyffe writing I Belong to Glasgow.

Now we should take something back in return – we need to emulate that famous Glaswegian gallusness and shout positively from the rooftops about Dundee.