After the Second World War the rural aspect of the district continued to change with the building of multi-storey blocks on the Sandyhills estate. The centre of Shettleston was also transformed by a series of planning initiatives to improve housing and the local environment to assist in attracting new businesses and industrial development in the aftermath of the collapse of the traditional heavy industry. Designated a Comprehensive Development Area (CDA) in 1960, Shettleston lost about 450 houses, but was spared wholesale clearance and break up of the community when the discredited programme was brought to a halt in 1974.
The Shettleston Tollcross area was included in the Greater Glasgow East End (GEAR) project, an integrated, multi-purpose scheme for urban renewal set up in 1976 by central government in partnership with local councils. Along with other agencies and the private sector, and in consultation with local communities, Shettleston Housing Association worked to renovate, rather than demolish, sub-tolerable tenement, council and private housing. It set out to modernise older property, provide a variety of new, quality housing for rental or ownership, improve back courts, landscape derelict and vacant ground and revitalise shopping areas.
Small workshop units were built on ground north of Old Shettleston Road and on the site of the Clyde Iron Works which closed in the 1970s. Eastbank Academy was refurbished and extended, a popular leisure complex was created in Tollcross Park, and Tollcross House was converted to sheltered housing. The now renowned Rose Garden in the park was the venue for the international rose trials when in July 2003 Glasgow hosted the World Rose Convention.