Santa Lucia is a mid-20th century experiment in town planning. In the 1950s, the dockyard towns of Paola and Tarxien needed to expand. A green-field site was found on adjacent agricultural land, and the Santa Lucia estate was built. With the Maltese Islanders' deep attachment to their birthplace towns and villages, there was no way of knowing if the `new town' concept would succeed, butt Santa Lucia has flourished, been granted parish status and is now home to a third generation of residents. On the outskirts of the town is a quaint Chinese Garden, the Garden of Serenity, laid out in the early 1990s.