Clare Harris

It's been dubbed Govanhell, and Ground Zero. Fly posters on lampposts, stuck there by concerned residents, read "End Slum Housing". Sometimes they flutter off to gather with the piles of household waste that litter street corners, until council binmen - deployed here several times a day - sweep them away in their perpetual clean-up.

Indoors, conditions can be worse. "We still have scenes of poverty comparable to 1960s slums," says the leader of the local housing association. "People are paying up to £650 a month for an unimproved flat that might have cockroaches, rats, bed bugs or a leaking roof, or where the cooker has to be used in lieu of heating."

A few miles south of Labour's latest losing ground, Govanhill is also hitting the headlines. Fury has grown over conditions in the area and the council's seeming inability to deal with "slum landlords". Added to the mix is a high concentration of Slovak Roma families, who are inevitably subject to racial slurs.

I live here, too. And unlike some online commentators, I'd rather it wasn't "razed to the ground".

Last weekend, my neighbours and I donned heavy duty rubber gloves to scrub down the bin shed in our back court. On the other side of the rickety metal fence there's a wasteland where a former cinema on the site was knocked down over a year ago. Children play in the rubble here; scruffy dolls lie discarded next to trikes and old hoovers. When we finished washing the bins, we blocked the rat-holes with old bricks.

Around us were the flats and closes featured in so many shocking front-page stories. This block was picked out for a feasibility study on the cost of wholesale improvement - the report, to be published shortly, found that not a single flat reached "tolerable standards".

It also presented an option to repair which would cost around £187m, or £80,000 per flat, a total as staggering as the conditions themselves.

In our close, we've been lucky to avoid the worst of the area. There are bikes chained up outside most flats, and a modest collection of houseplants. Someone has painted the entrance corridor in pink and white, adding a pretty curtain to the front door. It hasn't made any difference to the flaking plasterwork, damp stairwell and crumbling stone but like many folk in Govanhill, we've become frustrated with the dilapidation. We've begun to chat, to get to know each other, and to share bottles of bleach in an effort to spruce things up.

There's a lot of sprucing up to be done. But there's cause for optimism, too. From an architectural point of view, Govanhill is unique. It's the only pocket left in Glasgow where such a concentration of "hard to the pavement" Victorian tenements can be found. With conservation areas just a few streets away, the neighbourhood is beautiful in many senses, with wide streets ending in leafy views, and elegant villas taking over from tenements as you head east towards Cathcart Road.

The area narrowly avoided the slum clearances of the 1960s, when the policy was "clear the worst first". The Gorbals went, but by the time the demolishers got to Govanhill, housing strategy had changed to preserve and maintain old buildings, rather than pull them down. That policy led to a city-wide physical regeneration programme, an operation that continued throughout the 1980s as housing associations improved old stock and filled gap sites with new, mixed tenure housing.

Govanhill Housing Association, active since 1974, also prioritised "worst first", starting with the tenements around what's now Govanhill Park and working to comprehensively improve 2,000 properties.

I speak to Colin Kinnear, director of Riach architects who led the feasibility study on behalf of Glasgow City Council and Govanhill Housing Association (GHA). He referred to the 1980s overhaul as a "holding operation", which has not been followed up in more than 700 other properties, including those at Ground Zero'. "It was intended only as a stop-gap but we are now 20 years into that life cycle. If you wait much longer even the work that was done then is not worth salvaging."

The housing association are now keen to finish the job. Although the majority of the flats in question are privately owned, GHA director Anne Lear does not see this as a barrier to improvement - 25% of the flats they've already worked were not association-owned.

"We believe that the City Council wish to see the properties improved and that to do this the city will require to receive additional funding from Government," says Lear.

That's possible, but is it likely? Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2006, the council will have the power to create Housing Renewal Areas with urgent focus for all-round improvement. They will also be able to instruct works to be carried out by private landlords and owners, recovering costs as they go. They can make the Renewal areas as large, or small, as they like, but with high costs involved, the challenge is to ensure they are big enough to make a real difference.

Assuming the money side can be solved, with the right support, improving these slums' is not rocket science, Lear says.

Beyond the bricks and mortar, there may also be ways to mend the social cracks in the area. Over on Butterbiggins Road a new, free legal centre will soon be opening its doors. The Govanhill Law Centre, now recruiting staff, aims to provide the sort of back-up residents need when pushing for action. Recent increases in the area's population - with at least 1000 new residents from Slovakian Roma villages making homes here over the last three years - has played a large part in the uproar over housing conditions, thanks to overcrowding and exploitation by unscrupulous landlords.

Mike Dailly, principal solicitor at the Govan Law Centre and driver for the new Govanhill hub, hopes that access to free legal support will enable many of these families to gain some confidence in their rights.

There are less immediate reasons for optimism, too. Tucked away amid the tenements are thriving artistic communities - two studio complexes on either side of Ground Zero' count upwards of 50 working artists between them. Olivia Gurtler, who runs one, the Southside Studios, points to other places (New York, Berlin, Hoxton) where a growth in cultural activity like this has preceded a wider shift in the area. "We don't wait for funding," she says. "We take initiative - its very local."

And just down the road on Calder Street, positive murmurs once again surround the Govanhill Baths, closed since 2001 and subject of a dedicated local campaign to reopen them. At one time a social hub for families of all cultures, the Baths Trust hope to see the amenity thriving again. They have gained the backing of the Council to reopen the baths with sports, arts and health facilities, and await government sign-off for the scheme.

Perhaps most importantly, there's now a sense of purpose in the closes themselves. The Community Council is active, and local meetings are packed - residents may be fizzing angry, but they're there.

When street clean-ups take place, young owner-occupiers prune hedges alongside Slovak children and lifelong residents. I speak to Danny Alderslowe, Green councillor and stalwart agitator for change, because I get the sense - meeting him on clean-ups - that he's not giving up.

"We're losing people," he says. "There are so many flats for sale. But you know, this situation has meant Govanhill has had to look at itself. People are meeting each other that might not have before. There's an opportunity here of really seeing what the problems are and realising what a community is - and working on it."

Reasons for optimism

Grassroots projects currently operating in Govanhill

GREAT Gardens. Supported by the Govanhill Community Development Trust, GREAT Gardens is a new social enterprise that aims to provide local employment and training opportunities through gardening. Organisers hope it will foster local pride.

Govanhill Baths. After years of battling, the campaign to reopen the Victorian-built Govanhill Baths building looks set to succeed. Plans for a "sports and well-being centre" will provide a hub for all ages and sections of the community. Southside Studios and the Chalet. Two artist-led spaces holding upwards of 50 working, earning artists, these are a small but important boon to the local cultural economy - bringing international as well as local attention.

Govanhill Law Centre. Following the success of the free, open access Govan Law Centre, this new building will provide housing and employment advice to all comers. A dedicated translator and two solicitors aim to tackle exploitation of new and existing inhabitants, and especially the growing Slovak Roma population, by unscrupulous landlords.