By spring, the lyrical hoardings around Dublin's shiniest new neighbourhood at the city's old gasworks will be down. Róisín Ingle finds out what life there might be like.

To the irritation of those who have moved in, much of the new south Docklands neighbourhood is a building site, but here is a glimpse of what developers hope the place might be like when it's finally finished.

Think New York-style penthouse living. Think quayside roller bladers. Think borrowed sugar from the young solicitor in the apartment next door and lattés sipped on river-facing balconies.

Think elegance. Think affluence. Think easy like Sunday morning.

First, get your bearings. This new area begins in Ringsend around Barrow Street and South Lotts where the glass-panelled Gasworks rises like a shiny totem of things to come.

Residents haven't moved in to the actual gasworks building yet, but the apartments and townhouses dotted around the base of the famous Dublin landmark are almost full.

Once a close-knit, clannish community where everyone knew everyone else, this area has now been dubbed Googleland.

Around 600 people from more than 40 countries work in the internet search engine's European HQ on Barrow Street with 600 more jobs announced late last year.

A second building on the street is being renovated for the company and, across from the Google offices, apartments are occupied in the prime site beside the Grand Canal basin. Beside them historic Bolands Mills sits by the water waiting to be redeveloped. This is a time of massive regrowth for the area but not everyone is happy. "The dust and dirt is terrible," says one young mother in Gordon Street beside the Gasworks who has lived in Ringsend all her life.

"The new buildings have blocked all our sunlight. People keep saying how the price of our houses is going up but we don't want to move anywhere so that is no good to us."

"I think these apartments will be the slums of tomorrow," says South Lotts resident John Doyle, who like many locals fears traffic problems will escalate with the influx of the thousands of new residents and workers.

"It's getting too crowded, there are too many apartments and not enough amenities. I think it's just people wanting to make a quick shilling or people desperate to live in D4."

Radio producer Venetia Quick and her baby Felix were one of the first to move into the Gasworks apartments last July after living in the Baggot Street area for years.

"There is a lovely feel to the complex and I like the way it is not gated so you don't feel as though you are shutting yourself off from the community," she says.

"There is a real neighbourhood atmosphere and everyone is very friendly. There are shops, pubs, restaurants, all within walking distance and a really good medical centre in Ringsend. In fact, the only thing missing is a proper supermarket."

She might not have long to wait. Take a walk across Pearse Street to Gallery Quay beside the Grand Canal Docks where a pharmacy has already opened and where (rumour has it) a British supermarket chain is planning to open up in the basement. In a couple of years this area around the south docks and Sir John Rogerson's Quay will be unrecognisable.

At the moment the place is deserted, apart from the odd U2 tourist wandering around - work on the band's 78-metre tower begins this year.

By spring most of the hoardings emblazoned with lyrical idioms, such as "now these streets have a new story to tell", will be down.

Companies planning to make their home there include financial firm PFPC, recruitment company Rescon, property developers Dorville Homes and the Irish Taxation Institute. Ely Wine Bar, Italian restaurant Pacino's and Spar are also due to move into retail outlets at Longboat Quay.

The Grand Canal Theatre and a five-star Le Meridien Hotel are also due for completion in the next couple of years.

For the last few years though, up until the recent opening of a Quality Hotel on Cardiff Lane, Tom O'Brien's Ferryman Pub which comprises two listed buildings on Sir John Rogerson's Quay, has been the only sign of life.

"It was like being in the middle of a desert around here, business wouldn't have survived if I hadn't began offering accommodation upstairs," he says. "There used to be five or six pubs on this stretch of quay, now we are the only one."

The area suffered from the perception that it was rough which, he says, was unjustified. "That kind of thing kills trade," he says.

"But with all the development I can see it picking up already. Every lunchtime is busier than the last one and our traditional music night on Saturdays and our carvery lunch on Sundays are buzzing."

While at the moment you'd need a hard hat to safely explore this area, it won't be long before the Grand Canal Dock neighbourhood could double for the set of Ally McBeal. The imminent arrival of top legal firms, including Matthew, Ormsby Prentice, McCann Fitzgerald and Beauchamps should see bright, young, handsomely paid legal types exchanging gossip over lunch and letting their hair down after work in the wine bar. When they've all gone home it's hoped there will be enough life left in the place to create a more residential buzz.

"I think there is going to be the perfect mix of business and residential which will give the place a more social feel. Across the water in the IFSC area the area pretty much shuts down after business hours but, hopefully, that won't happen here," says Carolyn Coyle who, as new homes negotiator for HOK, has sold most of the Hanover Quay development where a Diarmuid Gavin-designed garden can be enjoyed, by residents only of course.

Research by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) shows there is a higher rate of owner-occupancy in this area than in other parts of the city and most of the residents are between the ages of 28 and 36.

What you won't see is couples struggling to push the latest designer buggies over the quayside cobbles. "Of all the people I have sold apartments to, I don't know one who has a child, the place has not been designed in that way. We haven't yet become like the Europeans who have no problem bringing up families in apartments," says Coyle.

Fortunately, with 20 per cent of social and affordable housing - a stipulation in all dockland developments - developers will also have to meet demands of a more mixed bunch of residents, some of whom might even have the audacity to bring children with them.

Loretta Lambkin of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority explains that the Chocolate Factory Park on Sir John Rogerson's Quay and various other open spaces have been designed with children in mind.

But no pets please, we're Irish and apartment regulations don't allow animals. If the residents of this trendy new district want to emulate the smart New York City types, they are just going to have to borrow someone else's labradoodle.