[Foghladh]

Originally Posted by John_Rambo

Won't happen. Rural Ireland has become far too reliant on the money. As for the one off housing? People can't see the wood for the trees... it's a disaster, an obvious one to people with a bit of foresight, but, you may as well be talking to the wall if you think you are going to try and change some minds here. But, they (and others are right now) seeing the folly of their ways when it comes to kids, school runs, sports, fuel prices, heating, fragmented communities, increasing price of services etc... There's also an obvious immature hatred of Dublin that is mixed in with a lack of knowledge of the place too.

And yet the irony is that the GDA is little better than one-off housing, albeit on a fairly massive scale. Take the London Greater Area as an example; Approx. 8 million people within an area of approx. 1600 square kilometres. Decent transport systems, a municipal goverment and a fairly contained grouping. The Greater Dublin Area has a population of approx 1.8 million people spread over about 7000 sq kilometres and 4 counties.

[mikemac1]

So Dublin wants the tax base of Maynooth and Leixlip but doesn't want anything to do with the one off housing in between

Sounds like cherrypicking to me

[murphaph]

Originally Posted by Fr Tod Umptious

So what would you do with farms then, not the small holdings but the big ones the produce the food that is consumed in your so call GDA day in day out. ?

Surely they could be see as a natural resources that are produced with the labour of those who live around them.

Or would you now like to include the Golden Vale in your GDA

As far as I'm aware, farming is a business whereby the farmer sells his produce. I don't see the point you're making.

Most people living in rural one off houses do not work on the land and have at best tenuous link to farming. Farming is simply not s labour intensive as it was 100 years ago, so far fewer people are able to produce far more food for the same given acreage.

[murphaph]

Originally Posted by Liam Byrne

And that's even avoiding the elephant in the room re the state and state banks subsidising and facilitating those who chose to massively overpay for houses and flats in said city.

Ah Liam, you're having a laugh if you think the only over-extended families are in Dublin or Cork. Check out that video of your man in Laois sending the Sherrif away: rural Laois. There are many people living in negative equity McMansions all over Ireland-don't kid yourself that it's purely an urban phenomenon!

You're trying to bring in strawman arguments to the debate. The debate is simply this:
Should urban Ireland continue to subsidise rural Ireland to the extent that it does? I say no, urban Ireland should start thinking more bout itself and its own unique set of challenges and should start electing politicians who can see that.

[murphaph]

Originally Posted by Foghladh

And yet the irony is that the GDA is little better than one-off housing, albeit on a fairly massive scale. Take the London Greater Area as an example; Approx. 8 million people within an area of approx. 1600 square kilometres. Decent transport systems, a municipal goverment and a fairly contained grouping. The Greater Dublin Area has a population of approx 1.8 million people spread over about 7000 sq kilometres and 4 counties.

You're making the argument for me. Densification is the way to go. You do know that the London Underground's predecessors built their (largely overground) Underground out over green fields to places like Surbiton and then built houses on the land along the lines.

Dublin has plenty of space along existing railway lines to densify. The problem is that said rilwy lines have low capacity and don't bring people to the city centre, because Dublin can't build Metro North or DART Underground, because Dublin is not allowed to keep its own tax revenue.

We could arbitrarily set the boundaries of an elected mayorship to the traditional county Dublin boundary-it's not really relevant to the debate exactly where the boundaries of a an elected Dublin mayoral region would lie. We can still debate the merits of such a thing without defining exactly where these boundaries would be. Greater London has few one off houses inside it's administrative area too.

[Liam Byrne]

Originally Posted by murphaph

Ah Liam, you're having a laugh if you think the only over-extended families are in Dublin or Cork. Check out that video of your man in Laois sending the Sherrif away: rural Laois. There are many people living in negative equity McMansions all over Ireland-don't kid yourself that it's purely an urban phenomenon!

You're trying to bring in strawman arguments to the debate. The debate is simply this:
Should urban Ireland continue to subsidise rural Ireland to the extent that it does? I say no, urban Ireland should start thinking more bout itself and its own unique set of challenges and should start electing politicians who can see that.

Never claimed that the "only" ones were in Dublin, so yet again you're twisting a valid point into something else in order to dismiss it.

It stands to reason that the most populated area with the most inflated house prices would have the most issues as a result of the price correction.

You have repeatedly made up boundaries and all sorts and defined them to suit YOUR agenda. Leixlip and Maynooth are NOT part of cities.

The debate has varied accordingly, depending on your twisting and turning.

And as I said earlier, if you want to go from the current setup to a setup that doesn't involve me subsidising others, fair enough; but you refuse to accept that your arbitrary definitions mean I should have far more services and shouldn't be subsidising others lifestyle choices either.

But you only want to do this in a way that suits you, and haven't genuinely thought of it as a policy or considered a fair implementatation.

[Cú Giobach]

Originally Posted by murphaph

Should urban Ireland continue to subsidise rural Ireland to the extent that it does? I say no, urban Ireland should start thinking more bout itself and its own unique set of challenges and should start electing politicians who can see that.

So you want to decrease the quality of life for some people, in order to increase the quality of life of others, not exactly the mark of a fair and just society.
A country, especially one the size of Ireland is a single unit, the parts of that unit that produce the most wealth are for the most part urbanised, with that wealth being transferred to all sections of society.
You could view a country as a family, with one person generating the wealth and then using it to for the good of the whole family, instead of saying "I earned the money, so I will only spend it on myself".

The question you are really asking is "Should Ireland distribute its wealth equally among all its citizens?".
You call it subsidising, I call it the equitable distribution of wealth.

[Godge]

Originally Posted by Liam Byrne

Interesting - so you are "allowing" Leixlip
to benefit even though they're not urban ? You're not from there by any chance, or working in Intel ?

Because - as I've clearly pointed out - Leixlip is far, far further from Dublin than I am from Limerick (about 20 times further) and yet you're happy to bend/break your rules for there to develop their sewerage scheme and bus routes but object to a comparable 2 mile scheme in the "Greater Limerick Area" of a far smaller radius.

Essentially you're just making up rules as you go along to suit yourself.

Comparing Limerick to Dublin is laughable. There are probably more people living in Dublin 15 than in Limerick. Must look again at the census figures.

Limerick is a large town/small city. Dublin is a conurbation. That is why it is legitimate to talk about a Greater Dublin region but silly to talk about a Greater Limerick region.

Originally Posted by Liam Byrne

Oh - one other point :



I didn't single out single parents - I mentioned ALL children's allowances. You claim that I should pay for my lifestyle choices, and I stated that others should pay for theirs.

Feel free not to answer, but do you have kids ? Is that not as much of a "lifestyle choice" as me deciding where I live ?

Whether you do or not, do you not think people should foot the bill for that choice themselves ?

There is a difference between living on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere and having kids and why the state should subsidise it.

If someone has kids they are contributing to the future social capital of the country. Essentially, if you selfishly do not have kids because of the lifestyle costs, you are relying on others to have kids who will grow up to work in the country and pay the taxes that will cover your hospital stay when you are 70 and your state pension. As a result, it is legitimate for the state to subsidise kids.

If you decide to live on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere it is doing the opposite. In years to come, that ambulance to bring you to hospital will have to travel further, the road that only you and a few others share will have to be maintained, the broadband services upgrades will cost more etc. Arguably, the state should substantially subsidise and encourage urban living as there is a lower cost for the state to provide services in urban areas.

[Fr Tod Umptious]

Originally Posted by Godge

There is a difference between living on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere and having kids and why the state should subsidise it.

If someone has kids they are contributing to the future social capital of the country. Essentially, if you selfishly do not have kids because of the lifestyle costs, you are relying on others to have kids who will grow up to work in the country and pay the taxes that will cover your hospital stay when you are 70 and your state pension. As a result, it is legitimate for the state to subsidise kids.

If you decide to live on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere it is doing the opposite. In years to come, that ambulance to bring you to hospital will have to travel further, the road that only you and a few others share will have to be maintained, the broadband services upgrades will cost more etc. Arguably, the state should substantially subsidise and encourage urban living as there is a lower cost for the state to provide services in urban areas.

Some of the urbanites here need to get out of the house a bit more.

There are feck all people living at the top of mountains in reality.

[Liam Byrne]

Originally Posted by Godge

Comparing Limerick to Dublin is laughable. There are probably more people living in Dublin 15 than in Limerick. Must look again at the census figures.

Ah, so you guys are happy redefining "urban" to suit yourselves as well ? Nice one!

Originally Posted by Godge

Limerick is a large town/small city. Dublin is a conurbation.

Firstly, Limerick is a city, so there's no need to embarrass yourself by throwing in the "large town" slur.

And see the thread title ? It mentions Urban/rural. Nothing about "conurbations".

My point was that I'm between two suburbs as the crow flies, not that I'm 40 miles out like Leixlip; even if we're talking RELATIVE distances, I'm more urban than about 40% of what murphman wants to arbitrarily include.

Originally Posted by Godge

There is a difference between living on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere and having kids and why the state should subsidise it.

And what does that have to do with the topic or my reply ? Have you seen any mountains within 1 mile of Limerick ?

Originally Posted by Godge

If someone has kids they are contributing to the future social capital of the country. Essentially, if you selfishly do not have kids because of the lifestyle costs, you are relying on others to have kids who will grow up to work in the country and pay the taxes that will cover your hospital stay when you are 70 and your state pension. As a result, it is legitimate for the state to subsidise kids.

Oh my good Jesus! Is this a serious politics board or is it After Hours ?

Originally Posted by Godge

If you decide to live on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere it is doing the opposite.

I don't, so your point is farcical.

Originally Posted by Godge

In years to come, that ambulance to bring you to hospital will have to travel further, the road that only you and a few others share will have to be maintained, the broadband services upgrades will cost more etc. Arguably, the state should substantially subsidise and encourage urban living as there is a lower cost for the state to provide services in urban areas.

There is a lower cost, which is why us rural-dwellers have paid extra for years for bins and electricity supply and our own transport, sewerage and water scheme / wells. "Roads that only you and a few others share" is a joke and you are simply being ridiculous; not only is the road required regardless to get milk from the 5 farms on this road to deliver them to you (with said trucks doing more damage and imposing more maintenance than all the cars put together) but I am paying road tax and I don't have the Luas & Dart as provided by the state to Dublin.

If you want to make some coherent arguments, fire away, but the above post was a waste of bandwidth and frankly just an excuse to have pot-shots and sneer at people with different priorities to yourself.

[John_Rambo]

Originally Posted by Liam Byrne

All that just because some people don't agree with you ?

thing is, people do agree with me. You are taking all this personally and trying to put a slur on Dublin by bringing up single mothers, car thieves, drug addicts, massively overpriced flats, the M50 and the privately owned Luas. You don't contribute anything to any of them and you are just bringing them up to get a rise out of people and to bring the debate off kilter.

So, anecdotes and grudges aside, do you think that the cities should continue subsidising rural areas?

[Foghladh]

Originally Posted by murphaph

You're making the argument for me. Densification is the way to go. You do know that the London Underground's predecessors built their (largely overground) Underground out over green fields to places like Surbiton and then built houses on the land along the lines.

And I assume you do know that Dublin has not followed the same example? Developing along transport links is not a new concept, that's why so many cities are built upon rivers. Dublin is unique in that it has built the dwellings first and is now in the position where it must try to facilitate a transport system around that. Given that the density of the development is so low and scattered over a huge area it's hard to see what type of transport system could be put in place to accomodate such a dispersed population at any sort of bearable cost.
Such a transport project could never be paid for by means of a municipal tax regardless, given it's scale. Any metro or dart interconnector projects in Dublin would need exchequer funding and will take years to expand before they could be seen to service the wider Dublin community.

Incidentally I'm not opposed to centralisation or urbanisation as you call it. I believe that urban areas should be able to levy taxes and spend them on urban needs. I've lived in London for years and am currently residing in Stockholm. Here all residents pay their income tax up to approx. 30000 euro to the municipal authority. Above that salary point you'll pay in increasing bands to the state tax. And everybody pays regardless of their starting salary, there is no low income exemption. However public transport works such as the tunnelbann etc are funded through central government and private investment. For your municipal tax here you'll be covered for everything from health services to road sweeping, although there is a further residential 'avgift' to cover water and waste etc. You'll even pay a burial tax.

However the difference is that for all it's size Stockholm still only contains less than a quarter of the Swedish population. The population is spread into a number of urban centres with industrial centres and resources and their accompanying hinterlands. There is a distribution of taxes throughout and those areas that are less profitable will benefit from the proximity of the urban areas adjacent.
London is similar in that it still contains only about 15% of Britains population. It is offset again by external, interlinked urban centres. The nature of these urban centres is that they impose an influence on the surrounding hinterlands and offset their cost. I have no experience of Germany but would imagine that it's something similar with well established cities like, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt etc.

Ireland is different however. It can be argued that we only have one, well established urban centre, that being Dublin. In essence the remainder of the country, being the size it is, is Dublins hinterland. Also a huge proportion of the resources of the state are situated in the capital. It's not so simple to pull up the drawbridge and let the outlying areas fend for themselves. In such a scenario you're essentially withdrawing 40% of the population and the resources that accompany them. The inevitable result would be a migration to increase the sprawl and to compound an already stressed situation.

I'd be more inclined to support more regional urban centres than ringfence the one huge thing that exists. The continued urbanisation of the Irish populace is a given. I just don't see that the existing Dublin model is the way to go nor should it be encouraged. Does anybody want to see the entire population of the country living in a bloc on the east coast with the remainder devoted to feeding the mass?

We'd tip over into the Irish Sea for starters!

[Liam Byrne]

Originally Posted by John_Rambo

thing is, people do agree with me.

Some people do, some people don't.

Originally Posted by John_Rambo

You are taking all this personally and trying to put a slur on Dublin by bringing up single mothers, car thieves, drug addicts, massively overpriced flats, the M50 and the privately owned Luas.

Are you suggesting that those don't exist ? It's not a slur. I also didn't single out "single mothers" (think they were referred to once and all other references were related to any person's lifestyle choices of having kids) and I didn't mention drug addicts at all. But hey, feel free to throw in whatever you want and pretend that I said it if it makes you feel better.

I also didn't "slur Dublin"; I mentioned general issues with urban areas. I never suggested that the occasional joyriders or thieves that I referred to came 120 miles to commit crimes; so again, you're making stuff up.

You don't contribute anything to any of them and you are just bringing them up to get a rise out of people and to bring the debate off kilter.

What "debate" ? The OP has redefined everything referred to as they go along in order to make it seem reasonable. They want each area to contribute its own, but want the money from rural villages like Leixlip and want to tap the resources from other parts of the country. So until there's a coherent point there is no debate.

So, anecdotes and grudges aside, do you think that the cities should continue subsidising rural areas?

Answered already. As someone with the suburbs 1.5 miles away and who seems to fall under the OP's definition of urban, I would benefit if the resources were used to provide proper facilities within this area and not the more remote ends of the county, but I'm not that selfish.

[AlekSmart]

I'm afraid Murphaph,that you are on a hiding to nothing here,because as everybody knows....

Originally Posted by Foghladh

Ireland is different however.

Our only real problem these days is finding enough beneficiaries to support that difference.

[RichardAnd]

Originally Posted by Godge

If someone has kids they are contributing to the future social capital of the country. Essentially, if you selfishly do not have kids because of the lifestyle costs, you are relying on others to have kids who will grow up to work in the country and pay the taxes that will cover your hospital stay when you are 70 and your state pension. As a result, it is legitimate for the state to subsidise kids.

How is making the choice not to have children in anyway selfish? Seriously, why do so many people in this country think that there is something wrong with not having children? I have no intention of having children yet when I mentioned this at a family dinner at christmas, I was laughed at by my rather condescending grandmother as if I had been a 9 year old child (I'm 25).

I won't have kids because I question my right to bring someone into a world such as this. Further, I also do not believe that I can afford to raise a child properly and provide for it as I have no idea what my situation will be this time next year. If you think that's selfish, you ought to re-think you definition of the word.