This volume explores the changes in Dublin in the 1950s and 1960s, and looks at how the city adapted to these developments. After the relative gloom of the 1950s, there was a rapid economic pick-up in the early 1960s. Car ownership increased as standards of living improved and Dublin, in common with other European cities, engaged in much soul-searching about what kind of city was needed for a car-owning population and whether this differed from the kind of city that people wanted.   The city centre had to redefine its role, but it had a boom in service employment in the 1960s which demanded purpose-built office accommodation. The preferred location for this commercial activity was the southeastern sector of Dublin, where the Georgian landscape was best preserved. The nature, scale and speed of change demanded a robust approach to planning. This was the period in which Dublin eventually got its first statutory town plan.