If you were to look at Baile Ath Cliath from the air, you’d think the powers that be were constructing a brand new city. Cranes seem to be a permanent structure in the skyline: these metallic monsters now tower over the city like alien invaders from a faraway galaxy.

On ground level, such is the proliferation of construction crews and scaffolding, you feel everyone walking the streets should be issued with a hard hat. And try ordering a sandwich in a Dublin deli at lunchtime– you’ll find a waft of burly builders in fluorescent bibs and steel-capped boots in front of you.

Clearly the city has gone building crazy. This is evident in the fact that the largest company in the state is not a bank, but CRH, the cement and builder’s supply company.

Personally, I’d love to leave Dublin and return in a few years when it’s all complete, but the city is now one big construction site and like an ageing heavyweight boxer, it doesn’t know when to quit.
But despite the chaos, the noise and the constant disruption, Dublin is changing for the better.

Take one street for example. Cork Street in the Liberties was once a place you’d speed up in your car to get through. It was Dickensian in its long narrow strip of dismal, derelict buildings, punctuated by probably the worst road surface in Dublin.

Today, the street has been totally transformed. A few relics from the past have still to face the wrecking ball, but for the most part, this old street represents the new Dublin: high, wide and handsome with a colourful mix of retail, residential and office developments and a two-lane motorway flowing freely through it.

With a little green space and the planting of young saplings, this could be one of the smartest areas to live in the coming years.

Dublin’s new-found wealth and prosperity means the city is almost completely unrecognisable from its semi-improvised past. It’s like we have built a new metropolis on top of the old one and only the most obvious landmarks could remain. Whole swathes of the city have disappeared from view in less than a generation and few of us are complaining about it.

The whole of the north quay in the city centre, from Bachelor’s Walk to Heuston Station was, in my youthful recollection, (circa early 80s) an eyesore. Apart from a few pubs and shops, the whole area had more rats living in it than people.

Now, on both sides of the quay, it’s wall-to-wall apartments all along the Liffey to the Phoenix Park and beyond. Along with the Dockland development, this is one of the great success stories of the city’s regeneration, turning a previous uninhabitable and desolate area into a place where thousands of people are now happy to reside.

A good city centre should always be an attractive place for people to live. This certainly wasn’t the case in the past, but now our capital is teeming with life and there isn’t enough room to meet the demand for inner city housing.

Shopping is another example of how Dublin has improved as a city. Nowadays, we have shopping centres jumping out in front of us all over the city (with the prospect of more to come). In 1985, it was rather different.

The height of sophistication for us was Grafton Street, with a flea market on Stephen’s Green every weekend as an added bonus. The place had the feel of a small provincial city in a far-flung corner of Europe and that’s exactly what we were.

Apart from the new buildings, the most obvious change in the city in recent times is the amount of people now living and working here. Since the start of the new millennium, the population of the metropolis has reached its highest ever. Over one million people reside in the county of Dublin.

Walking around Dublin streets less than 10 years ago felt like a gentle stroll. The place had the ambience of a big town rather than a capital city. Now, with thousands more people about, the pace of life has quickened. Suddenly there are a lot more bodies to dodge on the street. You need to walk a little quicker; your wits need to be a little bit sharper if you are to stay in touch and out of trouble.

The great pouring of people from all over the world into the city is a real novelty for Dubliners and one we are still getting used to. In a short period of time, we have gone from a Caucasian city to a multi-national, multi-coloured city. In a place where the most exotic creatures used to be a few busloads of Spanish teenagers, we are suddenly sharing the pavement with people from every continent.

There are 50,000 Chinese students now living in Ireland, the vast majority residing in Dublin. The free movement of labour in the EU together with the 12 new states becoming members last year means that we now have 80,000 Polish people here.

With 50,000 Romanians also in Ireland, not to mention many migrants from Africa and the sub-continent, it seems the global village has finally arrived in the fair city.

For people-watchers like myself, the new faces are the most fascinating aspect of the new Dublin. The different dialogues are interesting enough, but I find myself constantly wondering what country such a person is from and what he or she think of living in their adopted home.

The new arrivals bring a lot of positive benefits to Dublin. The city is livelier, more dynamic and more diverse than ever before. Foreign workers are also proving indispensable to this country’s economic success. Many of our manufacturing and service industries depend on migrant workers to work long, anti-social hours in menial jobs for a minimum wage.

The Chinese in our fast-food restaurant, the Polish labourer on the building site, the Filipino nurse in our hospital. These are our new neighbours. These are the new Dubliners.