The area also hosts some shops, two primary schools and nurseries, a community centre and the Cranhill water tower.

Infamous for its illegal drug trade and anti-social youth culture, Cranhill was often dubbed "Smack City" in the media.

Many of them had balconies or verandas overlooking the street and all were a vast improvement on living conditions in the old Glasgow slum tenements.

For many of the families who moved in, this was their first access to green fields and nearby farms, and the playing areas were paradise compared to the rat-infested back-courts which the children had formerly suffered.

Nevertheless, a favourite play area was the 'Sugarolly Mountains', substantial hills made from chemical tailings dumped by the side of the canal on the site now occupied by the high flats (and featured in the lyrics of Jim Diamond).

Bus routes were extended through the scheme to make it easier for people to travel for work or pleasure, to the City Centre or the nearby shopping areas of Shettleston and Dennistoun.

As well as the shops, local people were served by mobile street traders with vans and lorries selling foodstuffs, coal and paraffin oil, sweets and soft drinks, ice cream and even fish and chips.

The Tenants' Association hall provided an early focus for social events and a Community Centre was opened around 1980.

The carnival, however, was stopped in the mid-1980s due to ignored safety regulations which led to some serious accidents, including a near fatal head injury of a three-year-old child.

At night, the structure was illuminated a vibrant green with white spotlights shining from the base of the tank down to the ground.

Politician Adam Ingram lived in Skerryvore Road at the bottom of the lane and Glasgow Boy artist Adrian Wiszniewski was also a Cranhill resident.

Junior Campbell from the sixties band The Marmalade and who also wrote the music for Thomas the Tank Engine lived in nearby Springboig, but ran his schoolboy "paper round" from the Glasgow Evening Times/Citizen van drop at the infamous Cranhill Water Tower.

There is also an active Community Council consisting of several committed residents who aim to deal with issues affecting the Cranhill neighbourhood, and it holds regular monthly meetings open to all interested residents with these normally taking place every fourth Wednesday of the month at 7pm in the Community Centre.

In 2016, Glasgow City Council outlined masterplans for the development of the Greater Easterhouse area (including Cranhill) over the next 20 years.