Drumchapel was built in the early 1950s in an effort to tackle Glasgow's desperate post-war housing shortage. Many people saw this as their opportunity to make new lives for themselves and their families. Others found being uprooted from their close-knit communities quite traumatic as they did not want to the leave areas where they had grown up with their parents and grandparents.
In the early days of Drumchapel housing scheme there were no amenities and travel was restricted as the bus service to the city operated at only half-hourly intervals. There was only one post office and telephone box in the village. People had to travel to Glasgow to pay the rents for their houses, or if they wanted to shop or socialise, as there were neither shops nor public houses. The Shopping Centre was not completed until the early 1960s.
Most people had to travel to their work, the main employers being the local Goodyear Tyre & Rubber Co, the Singer sewing machine factory in Clydebank, Beatties biscuit factory, and the Clyde shipyards. When recession came in the 1970s, the factories all closed creating massive unemployment and social deprivation in Drumchapel. Many projects and initiatives were introduced to counter the effects of poverty and deprivation but, because of later cutbacks, they disappeared. However Drumchapel is now going through a period of regeneration, many new homes being built. With the creation of a social inclusion partnership and the building of a new high school, the people of Drumchapel look to the future with greater optimism.