ABSTRACT
'Garden City', or more correctly the expanding ring of low-density suburban developments, came to dominate the character of Dublin by mid-century. A. Homer has identified several distinct types of city which have dominated Dublin's character through the twentieth century. The demand emanated from private households seeking better housing and environmental conditions and, on the other, was associated with public-sector slum clearance programmes and the desire to reduce central Dublin's appallingly high residential densities. Gradually, the generally market-led trends in land-use and development which have dominated Dublin's development and which facilitated the decentralisation of employment to suburbia, have given rise to major problems. Dublin is far from unique in its trend towards the peripheralisation of economic activities and employment. Rapid economic expansion during the 1990s generated a rising demand for office space to accommodate the expanding services-sector workforce, leading to the most intensive office development boom in the city's history.
