Monday morning in Glasgow. It is beginning to rain and the River Clyde is grey and sullen. Just a stone's throw away the city centre is bustling with shoppers and office workers, dodging puddles, pondering purchases, chatting on mobile phones. I am on the waterfront, which is all but deserted.

Looking out with me from the sixth-floor balcony of one of Glasgow's swish new waterfront buildings is Professor Andy McMillan, former head of the Mackintosh School of Architecture at Glasgow School of Art, and a Scottish parliament building judge. There is not much to see.

The flat overlooks a stretch of down-at-heel parkland. Two cyclists wobble along the narrow cycle track below, a lone jogger puffing after them. A group of teenagers, suspiciously near school age, huddle together for shelter. The river is devoid of activity.

No other city ignores its waterfront in the way Glasgow does. London's South Bank has been rejuvenated by the likes of the London Eye ferris wheel and new Saatchi gallery, in Paris the banks of the Seine now have an artificial beach every summer, and even the stag parties in Amsterdam take a wander along the canals. It would be a brave tourist who strolled along the Clyde and emerged unscathed.

Glasgow's city fathers hope that, with the redevelopment of the dilapidated Custom House Quay, that could change. Glossy brochures show the possibilities: Clyde Street busy and vibrant, the riverfront crammed and pleasure boats on the water.

But McMillan fears their dreams may fall horribly flat. He says that if the plans go ahead, all the city will get is a dreary mini suburb. The proposed buildings are, he says, "banal" and will block views of the river from the rest of the north bank. Set back from the main shopping streets, behind some rundown buildings, he claims Custom House Quay will feel more like an upmarket Brookside Close than a buzzing waterfront extension of the city centre.

He is not alone. Peter Wilson of the Manifesto Foundation at Napier University in Edinburgh says that the political will for excellence in architecture and planning is simply not there. "In Glasgow, and in Scotland generally, there is still the political mentality to accept what comes along," he says.

"We are not raising the game. We talk about creating world-class buildings but we don't go out there and see what that means. Glasgow's future could be aspiration. Instead we are caught up in the world of cosy golf club procurement of bland residential buildings."

IT USED to be so straightforward. Before Glasgow reinvented itself as what planners call "a leisure city", the Clyde was the heart of the city's industrial revolution, with well-furrowed shipping lanes and busy quays. In the 18th century it was the main business artery for the tobacco merchants. By the early 20th century, it was the shipbuilding capital of the world, building the Lusitania, the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth and the QE2. It was a banging, clanking, working river, central to the city's economy and identity.

Then the shipbuilding industry drained away and Glasgow turned its back on the river that was once its lifeblood. Package holidays replaced the trips "doon the water" that had once been the highlight of the Glasgow fair fortnight.

In the 1980s, with the city's self-confidence at its lowest ebb, help arrived from an unlikely figure. The sunshine yellow face of Mr Happy beamed down from every billboard in town, telling citizens and any tourists brave enough to visit, "Glasgow's Miles Better".

Mr Happy was the public face of a regeneration plan that was the beginning of the Clyde's current renaissance. The 1988 Garden Festival, on its south bank, brought in much-needed investment. Next came an audacious, and successful, bid to become European City of Culture in 1990. The town centre became a building site, conserving the old, saving the damaged and putting up the new.

In 1999 the city was awarded a new title — UK City of Architecture — and the Lighthouse, the Royal Concert Hall and Buchanan Galleries mall transformed the once grim streets into a chic and polished shopping city. Leisure was the new industry as designer labels, smart cafes, style bars, clubs, cinemas and hotels replaced the shipyards and docks.

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