Future cities in Ireland

Aard · 13-05-2015 11:52pm

KCAccidental wrote: »

That is how Dublin's population is recorded.

Nope - the CSO releases data on "Settlements". These are not restricted to admin boundaries. "Dublin City" has about 500k population, while "Dublin" as defined by the CSO (which obviously changes every census due to the expansion of the urban area) has about 1.1m population.

mg1982 · 14-05-2015 12:05am

Aard wrote: »

Yep - a very interesting situation. Research by Brian Hughes has looked at this particular anomaly. Zipf's Law can be related to settlement size hierarchies, and some of the gaps in the Republic's settlement hierarchy can be filled by taking an all-island perspective. Namely the inclusion of Belfast and Derry.

Belfast and Derry are in a different country effectively so we wont have any say in how they develop. There was talk many years ago of building a city in the west but nothing came of that. Maybe try and develop Galway which has a rapidly growing population and large towns like Sligo and Athlone.

KCAccidental · 14-05-2015 12:14am

Aard wrote: »

Nope - the CSO releases data on "Settlements". These are not restricted to admin boundaries. "Dublin City" has about 500k population, while "Dublin" as defined by the CSO (which obviously changes every census due to the expansion of the urban area) has about 1.1m population.

So Dublin's population is defined differently to Cork's? All references to Cork City's population come from the administrative boundary.

Aard · 14-05-2015 12:24am

KCAccidental wrote: »

So Dublin's population is defined differently to Cork's? All references to Cork City's population come from the administrative boundary.

Settlement populations have been added to Wikipedia here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland_by_population

The full list from the CSO contains all settlements with a population of 1,500 or more.

KCAccidental · 14-05-2015 12:36am

Aard wrote: »

Settlement populations have been added to Wikipedia here: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland_by_population

The full list from the CSO contains all settlements with a population of 1,500 or more.

that figure is never used for Cork though, always the administrative number. It's a strange disparity

Aard · 14-05-2015 5:49am

When you say never used -- by whom? It really depends on context. There are a few different population figures one can cite: administrative boundary, urban area, “metropolitan” area, MUA, FUA...... Whichever one suits one's argument best. That's why I like using the CSO defined settlement figures. There's a standardised measurement for all settlements in Ireland, so comparisons are made much easier and the anomalies of admin boundaries are avoided.

dubhthach · 14-05-2015 11:49am

mg1982 wrote: »

Belfast and Derry are in a different country effectively so we wont have any say in how they develop. There was talk many years ago of building a city in the west but nothing came of that. Maybe try and develop Galway which has a rapidly growing population and large towns like Sligo and Athlone.

Rather partitionist attitude to have, they might be in a different state but they are still in Ireland.

As it is we are probably gonna see increased sharing of services across the border, for example Derry providing hospital services to Donegal etc. which would reflect the historic situation pre-partition when Derry was the main urban area in the North-west.

Aard · 14-05-2015 12:07pm

International planning cooperation is commonplace in mainland Europe. No reason why it can't take place between Ireland and the UK (or part thereof). Indeed it already does to a certain extent.

Development between Dublin and Belfast will outpace the rest of the country. This can happen in a planned strategic fashion between the two states, or haphazardly leading to economic drag.

mg1982 · 14-05-2015 12:59pm

Whether it a partitionist attitude or not its a reality. There are two different states with two completely different types of economies, one which is heavily reliant on the public sector and two different currencies. My own belief is there should be geographical spread of future infastructure developments in this country with more emphasis on the regions. Dublin is already under massive pressure as it is for a city of its size which is not big by international standards.

D.L.R. · 14-05-2015 3:05pm

mg1982 wrote: »

Whether it a partitionist attitude or not its a reality. There are two different states with two completely different types of economies, one which is heavily reliant on the public sector and two different currencies. My own belief is there should be geographical spread of future infastructure developments in this country with more emphasis on the regions. Dublin is already under massive pressure as it is for a city of its size which is not big by international standards.

Dublin is under pressure because of failure to invest in key infrastructure in Dublin. Developing the regions won't fix that.

The only thing that will improve Dublin is to build the infrastructure that Dublin needs.

KCAccidental · 14-05-2015 3:55pm

Aard wrote: »

When you say never used -- by whom? It really depends on context. There are a few different population figures one can cite: administrative boundary, urban area, “metropolitan” area, MUA, FUA...... Whichever one suits one's argument best. That's why I like using the CSO defined settlement figures. There's a standardised measurement for all settlements in Ireland, so comparisons are made much easier and the anomalies of admin boundaries are avoided.

The media, geography textbooks etc. Just give it google and see which population is cited the most.

Aard · 14-05-2015 4:09pm

Ah don't trust most media sources when they give population numbers!! The CSO is yer only man for that. I've seen Dublin figures given as anywhere from 500k to 2m. With the author clearly having no idea which figure was appropriate.

People will also select figures to bolster their own arguments. (For example by giving population densities of the Greater Dublin Area -- a planning term covering Dublin and surrounding counties -- instead of the urban area. Makes Dublin appear to have the population density of Alaska! Useful for the “Dublin is low density” argument, but completely disingenuous.)

SpaceTime · 14-05-2015 4:30pm

In general population figures given in Ireland are totally misleading.

I've had to use them for commercial purposes and if you took some at their word, you'd overlook quite large population centres.

The two cities most frequently underestimated are Cork and Derry.

dubhthach · 14-05-2015 4:44pm

Census 2011:

Dublin (City and County) Total: 1,273,069
Broken down as following:

Dublin City: 527,612 (obviously the boundaries of city do not reflect urban area)
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown: 206,261
South Dublin: 265,205
Fingal: 273,991

The contigous urban population according to following CSO document is:
1,110,627

see map on page 9:
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/census/documents/census2011vol1andprofile1/Profile1_Town_and_Country_Entire_doc.pdf

This excludes population of nearby areas such as Swords, Bray, Leixlip, Malahide and Maynooth.

KCAccidental · 14-05-2015 6:55pm

Aard wrote: »

Ah don't trust most media sources when they give population numbers!! The CSO is yer only man for that. I've seen Dublin figures given as anywhere from 500k to 2m. With the author clearly having no idea which figure was appropriate.

People will also select figures to bolster their own arguments. (For example by giving population densities of the Greater Dublin Area -- a planning term covering Dublin and surrounding counties -- instead of the urban area. Makes Dublin appear to have the population density of Alaska! Useful for the “Dublin is low density” argument, but completely disingenuous.)

Media coverage can affect how a city is perceived though and that's the problem.

Aard · 14-05-2015 7:06pm

Sure can. What way are you referring to?

Carawaystick · 15-05-2015 12:06pm

dubhthach wrote: »

see map on page 9:
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/census/documents/census2011vol1andprofile1/Profile1_Town_and_Country_Entire_doc.pdf

That map is a great resourse.
Interesting looking at the various sizes of towns (area vs. pop) Letterkenny vs. Drogheda for example. Or even Drogheda and Dundalk.

It also shows how most of Fingal is rural.

dubhthach · 15-05-2015 12:25pm

Most of area of Fingal is rural, but bulk of it's population would be urban. The city boundaries of course contribute this, so for example Castleknock though within the M50 is part of Fingal. (Howth was previously part of city and was detached in 1994!)

ongarboy · 15-05-2015 1:44pm

KCAccidental wrote: »

Media coverage can affect how a city is perceived though and that's the problem.

Media coverage can affect how anything is perceived which is why Galway is very often presented as a larger urban area than Limerick when the actual settlement population of Limerick (some of which spills over into Clare) is about 15000 more. 91,000 in Limerick vs 77,000 in Galway.

Fact will always be fact though and that is what the CSO Census figures present using certified, best international practice methodologies for population counts.

As regards the thread subject, Ireland doesn't need future cities - such ideas are about as merited as the failed spatial strategy. The 5 existing cities in the Republic are close enough to everyone in that no one is more than 2 hours from a critical mass centre. (exception probably being Donegal which can leverage off Derry city).

monument · 15-05-2015 10:06pm

ongarboy wrote: »

As regards the thread subject, Ireland doesn't need future cities - such ideas are about as merited as the failed spatial strategy. The 5 existing cities in the Republic are close enough to everyone in that no one is more than 2 hours from a critical mass centre. (exception probably being Donegal which can leverage off Derry city).

You're going to have to explain that one... Ireland does not need future cities because there's one within 2 hours of nearly every place?

And a failed spatial strategy is a reason not to plan anything in the future?

Figel2 · 08-08-2015 6:02pm

If Dublin keeps growing the next biggest town in Ireland will be Portlaoise which has excellent connections to the rest of the country and is one hour by road from Dublin plus has nice cheep houses (compared to Dublin) .

Little wonder it is growing so fast .

newmug · 09-08-2015 12:54am

D.L.R. wrote: »

Dublin is under pressure because of failure to invest in key infrastructure in Dublin. Developing the regions won't fix that.

The only thing that will improve Dublin is to build the infrastructure that Dublin needs.

Feck Dublin. The WHOLE COUNTRY is struggling. Why should we service one quarter of the population with what little we have and forget about the other three quarters?

Part of planning is population control. We need a good long-term population strategy badly. We only have enough agricultural land to feed 1 million people continuously, everybody else is living off the fat of Foreign Direct Investment - and that ain't going to last forever.

We should start with Dublin. Try to get its population below 1 million. At the same time, be upgrading the regions. Eventually, things will start to balance out.

donvito99 · 09-08-2015 3:11pm

newmug wrote: »

Feck Dublin. The WHOLE COUNTRY is struggling. Why should we service one quarter of the population with what little we have and forget about the other three quarters?

Because 1/4 all live very closely together and it is therefore more affordable and efficient to adequately cater to them than it is to build, say, a railway line from, say, Athenry to Sligo. Just as an example, like.

Try to get its population below 1 million

Cúpla concentration camps in the Curragh?

dubhthach · 09-08-2015 5:15pm

newmug wrote: »

Part of planning is population control. We need a good long-term population strategy badly. We only have enough agricultural land to feed 1 million people continuously, everybody else is living off the fat of Foreign Direct Investment - and that ain't going to last forever.

I'm not all together sure where ye coming up with figure of 1 million when it comes to argicultural land, we had no issue sustaning a multiple of that figure 100 years ago for example (4.4million~ in 1911)

Subpopulus · 09-08-2015 6:02pm

Heard a stat a few years ago to the effect that Ireland produces enough food to feed about five or six times our population.

Sam Russell · 09-08-2015 6:34pm

newmug wrote: »

We only have enough agricultural land to feed 1 million people continuously, everybody else is living off the fat of Foreign Direct Investment - and that ain't going to last forever.

We export 90% of our beef, similar amounts of lamb/mutton and milk/cheese. We export potatoes and other produce. If we had to, we could eliminate imports of chicken and eggs. So what exactly do we eat that we cannot supply? Oh, yes - rice.

SpaceTime · 09-08-2015 6:56pm

Sam Russell wrote: »

We export 90% of our beef, similar amounts of lamb/mutton and milk/cheese. We export potatoes and other produce. If we had to, we could eliminate imports of chicken and eggs. So what exactly do we eat that we cannot supply? Oh, yes - rice.

Basically most of the vegetables and grains are imported.

We have some hot housed tomatoes, peppers and berries and we produce mushrooms but that's pretty much it.

Most of our apple production is for cider and we grow very little other fruit.

You'd have a diet of spuds (for a few months a year), porridge and a lot of meat and dairy and a very narrow and hugely expensive range of vegetables and fruit as we don't grow nearly enough to meet local demand.

Growing conditions for wheat are also too wet and cold here so, you could forget bread, cakes, biscuits etc etc too

Sam Russell · 09-08-2015 7:27pm

SpaceTime wrote: »

Basically most of the vegetables and grains are imported.

We have some hot housed tomatoes, peppers and berries and we produce mushrooms but that's pretty much it.

Most of our apple production is for cider and we grow very little other fruit.

You'd have a diet of spuds (for a few months a year), porridge and a lot of meat and dairy and a very narrow and hugely expensive range of vegetables and fruit as we don't grow nearly enough to meet local demand.

Growing conditions for wheat are also too wet and cold here so, you could forget bread, cakes, biscuits etc etc too

We produce (or could produce) all root vegetables, cabbage, apples (particularly cooking apples). We can produce berries (like blueberries and black currants), strawberries, and some other soft fruits. Now if there was demand, we could grow more.

We grow plenty of wheat, oats and barley. We do not grow hard wheat but we can use our wheat for bread, and particularly for soda bread.

We could be self sufficient in chicken if the imports from Asia and South America were properly regulated.

We are a green island and could be more than completely self sufficient in food - no bother, but our diet would need to alter slightly, and our imports of dodgy foods would need controlling. Our fish stocks were given away many years ago. Many of our food imports are from unsustainable sources such as ex-rainforest plantations.

I have never heard anyone say we could not support our population in food supply.

John_Rambo · 09-08-2015 7:39pm

newmug wrote: »

Feck Dublin. The WHOLE COUNTRY is struggling. Why should we service one quarter of the population with what little we have and forget about the other three quarters?

Because Dublin and the cities are supporting and funding the the rest of the country. By doing so, Dublin is certainly not forgetting about the rest of the country! Or saying "Feck the rest of the country" (nice attitude by the way

)

Mahogany · 12-08-2015 1:07am

You'd swear this is a phenomenon that only happens in Ireland, it happens everywhere. In the UK, most of the wealth/resources etc is concentrated in London and the South East. Same goes for France(Paris) and Portugal(Lisbon)

Future cities in Ireland

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