Myles Wright, as the saying goes, was miles wrong. The Liverpool professor of town planning gave Dublin its first regional plan in 1965 and that, in turn, led to the development of the three western "new towns", starting with Tallaght.
The whole thesis was based on a motorised city; whether high-quality public transport would ever materialise was not a major consideration. Planning, in any case, was developer-led as the green fields of Co Dublin turned into fields of gold.
The latest strategic plan for Dublin and its hinterland takes a radically different approach. Its emphasis is on creating a more compact built-up area and diverting a share of growth to existing towns much further out with good public transport links.
According to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, it has come "just in the nick of time". However, given the sheer volume of development that's happened in the past 30 years - the number of facts created on the ground - it is, arguably, too late.
The consultants, led by Brady Shipman Martin, point out that six of the seven local authorities in the Greater Dublin area have either adopted or are in the process of adopting new development plans; only Meath County Council has yet to start on its own.
Mr Dempsey has made it clear that all seven local authorities will be required to ensure that their plans conform to the strategic guidelines, which will be given statutory effect by a new planning and development Bill, due later this year.
Some of them have already taken on board the Minister's message about higher residential densities in well-designed schemes. But they will need to change their mind-sets, too, particularly on the need to match new housing areas with public transport.
The new plan effectively disowns the policies pursued in the Greater Dublin area since the mid-1960s, describing car-dependent, low-density suburban sprawl as unsustainable; if it was to continue, Dublin would be "strangled" by its own traffic.
It contains some brilliant examples of lateral thinking, such as diverting the Dublin/Belfast main line inland, to serve Swords and Dublin Airport, thus freeing up the coastal line from Balbriggan to Greystones for more frequent commuter rail services.
The plan also favours a new cross-river rail link in the city centre, between Barrow Street and Spencer Dock, to by-pass the existing Loop Line and congestion at Connolly station. This would release extra capacity to provide more frequent DART trains.
WHAT emerges most forcefully from the consultants' report is that time is not on our side. Rapid population growth, fuelled by the current economic boom, has created an unprecedented demand for housing; altogether, over 200,000 new homes are needed.
Where these houses are built and where their occupants will work are crucial issues. By locating higher-density housing nearer places of work and public transport, the plan aims to reduce the growth in demand for travel by private car, especially at peak hours.
Civil servants have calculated that the overall investment programme recommended by the guidelines would cost £3 billion; about £1.2 billion each for roads and public transport and the balance for water and sewerage services.
The Department of Finance will no doubt resist spending such large sums of money, even though the Exchequer has never been so buoyant; it will be canvassing "public-private partnerships" to pay for as much new infrastructure as possible.
If the strategic planning guidelines are not implemented, Mr Dempsey warned, economic growth in the Greater Dublin area would grind to a halt and the environment would be choked by the pollution and congestion caused by increasing traffic.
"It's not a choice, but an absolute necessity," the Minister declared. Clearly, the penny has dropped for him; he is now determined to ensure we don't just go on stumbling from one mistake to another and learning from them when it's too late.