The number of people living inside the city proper used to be much higher. Starting in the early 1960s the old tenements were pulled down and new housing built further out (high-rise blocks were the fashion of the day). Now there is nowhere near the number of people living in Glasgow as during the famous times of the shipyards on the River Clyde. It was said to be the second biggest city in the world after London at one point in the 1800s. 