No Mean City is a 1935 novel by Alexander McArthur, an unemployed worker, and H. Kingsley Long, a journalist. It is an account of life in the Gorbals, a run-down slum district of Glasgow (now mostly demolished, but re-built in a contemporary style) with the hard men and the razor gangs.
Whatever its literary or other merits, for many years it was regarded as the definitive account of life in Glasgow, and its title became a byword.
Its title is a quotation from the Bible, where Paul the Apostle says that he is a citizen of Tarsus, which is "no mean city".
This tale of Glasgow gang lands is set in the inter-war period (1920s) and is a depiction of working class life for young and old, male and female and gives insight into both the private and public issues faced by the dwellers of the city.[1]