Is Dublin An 'Ugly' City?

RockinRolla

Just walking around the city centre, you can kinda get a vibe - that reminiscence of a colonised past with all the Georgian and Victorian buildings. And it's nice to walk through history but having been to other European cities - is our capital the worse laid-out? It doesn't really have much to offer - a small centre with huge urban sprawl. Even flying into the airport, a glance down is not very welcoming to the tourist who see's row upon row of housing estates.

Add to that, that our planning authority rejects everything over twelve inches and the massive derelict land down by the port that could be used. Nothing stands out - and that spire that cost the taxpayer €4 million to erect is worthless because you can't even go inside and up to the top. having been to other cities, is Dublin one of the worse?

donvito99

Yes. I don't see how its an aesthetically nice city at all. You need to lose much more than Hawkins House, Liberty Hall etc.

Pavements poor, lack of trees, road quality, goddam signs (shop fronts and street)

The list goes on. I don't see what tourists find great about Dublin, unless you're over for a pissup.

Krusader

It is badly laid-out, a grand place would be nice for tourists and artisans to mill around

Krusader

donvito99 wrote: »

Yes. I don't see how its an aesthetically nice city at all. You need to lose much more than Hawkins House, Liberty Hall etc.

Pavements poor, lack of trees, road quality, goddam signs (shop fronts and street)

The list goes on. I don't see what tourists find great about Dublin, unless you're over for a pissup.

The people!

brummytom

I wouldn't say it's ugly, it has some nice buildings like St Patrick's and Trinity; but it does seem a bit cramped. That's to be expected though with a capital city.

But no, I wouldn't say it was ugly.

number10a

Well being from Corkonia, I'm gonna say yes. But you can discount that answer because I'm obviously biased.

But in Dublin's defence, I can think of few cities that look amazing from the sky. Flying into most European cities, all you see is row after row of concrete block apartments and massive industrial estates. There are exceptions like Barcelona and Rome. But from the sky, I think Dublin isn't all that bad. It's a really green city.

Blisterman

Most cities have a small city centre surrounded by sprawl. Not nice, but Dublin's hardly unique in that.

And you can't go inside most public artwork. It's hardly worthless for that reason.

CreepingDeath

No, the cramped buildings and narrow streets give it a nice "old" feel.
For tourists, they probably like the fact that everything is within walking distance in the city centre.

Contrast it with Washington DC, 3 lane roads around the city, large open spaces and no clear sense of where the centre is.
The Americans like their malls, so there's little or no shops on the streets.

Although we certainly don't compare well to the likes of Rome, Stockholm, Amsterdam etc. But I wouldn't say we're the worse, Dublin has character.

EL_Loco

give it time, the high rises will go up and in 20/30/40 years time you'll be wishing we didn't look like every where else.

not that I "like" it's flat sky line, but I think it's part of the charm of the place.

Ev84

RockinRolla wrote: »

our planning authority rejects everything over twelve inches

he he...

RockinRolla wrote: »

erect is worthless

he he he...

prinz

Dublin goes from extreme to extreme. Beautiful in parts. So ugly in other parts they should be razed to the ground and started again.

Micky Dolenz

Moved from AH.

Ev84

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Moved from AH.

Moved? Oh well, in that case, I like the look of Dublin city. I think it's cool. I used to love going up there to my Granny's (ye say Granny in Dublin) house around Christmas. Used to love heading into town on the top floor of a double decker bus and looking at all the mad displays in the windows when we got there. And going up moores street getting shouted at by all the fruit/vegetable sellers. Do they still do that now?

Cool Mo D

It has ugly parts and beautiful parts, right next to each other in the city centre. But you get jaded towards the beauty after a while, and never stop noticing the ugly. Especially because some of the ugly streets could look great with a bit of care.

It's certainly a lot nicer looking than many cities of a similar size around Europe, but it's not exactly Venice or Prague either.

tony 2 tone

It has its moments but there is an awful lot of ugly buildings and as some one mentioned above, ugly shops and shop fronts. In particular I hate the redeveloped area around the Point and Grand Canal dock, soul-less concrete mess.

BraziliaNZ

number10a wrote: »

Well being from Corkonia, I'm gonna say yes. But you can discount that answer because I'm obviously biased.

But in Dublin's defence, I can think of few cities that look amazing from the sky. Flying into most European cities, all you see is row after row of concrete block apartments and massive industrial estates. There are exceptions like Barcelona and Rome. But from the sky, I think Dublin isn't all that bad. It's a really green city.

a) Cork is an even uglier city than Dublin

b) Barcelona is surrounded by hideous poorly planned high rise schemes

Anyway yes Dublin isn't the prettiest city, the place is in tatters, the Northside anyway, covered in rubbish and terrible signage. Even the roads in city centre are in bits, you notice it a lot more as a cyclist. As much as I try to like it, I think I've given up on Dublin ever being aesthetically pleasing. It's impossible to keep the place clean and nice with all the junkies and pajama classes walking around. The city centre being surrounded by a ring of social housing/flats doesn't help either.

diddlybit

I don't find the fact that the centre is small problematic, I detest going to cities where it takes me an hour to get anyway and that I can't find a centre point. It makes it ideal for a weekend trip and at least if tourists can walk around, they don't have to deal with the absurdity of that which is Dublin bus.

tony 2 tone wrote: »

It has its moments but there is an awful lot of ugly buildings and as some one mentioned above, ugly shops and shop fronts. In particular I hate the redeveloped area around the Point and Grand Canal dock, soul-less concrete mess.

Completely agree with this, especially now that the recession has hit, and these areas are like ghost-towns. Smithfield square is similar, had a good buzz once that they were hoping to capitalise on with Tiger money, but now it's a little horrid.

The older areas are nicer, but the buildings have been allowed to fall into disrepair by neglect and generally, ignored as they are in socially deprievd areas. Infirmary Road has some of the nicest houses I've seen in Dublin and they are falling apart, but would I walk there at night? Hell, no

BraziliaNZ

I like the new Grand Canal Dock area, some nice bars and restaurants there too. Smithfield has always been a sh*thole. Full of homeless drunks and young offenders during the day, travelers at the weekend, and like a ghost town at night. The gentrification of that area was a total failure imo.

diddlybit

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

I like the new Grand Canal Dock area, some nice bars and restaurants there too. Smithfield has always been a sh*thole. Full of homeless drunks and young offenders during the day, travelers at the weekend, and like a ghost town at night. The gentrification of that area was a total failure imo.

It aws never that bad, and has some of the best bars in Dublin, but they've been there before the re-development. It's getting worse though, as all the new businesses are shutting down. You're right though, complete failure.

Lawrence1895

No city or town is bad all thr way through, there are decent and bad areas everywhere. Same applies to Dublin.

The majority of the cycle lanes are bad though and I'm always careful passing some housing estates.

Poor Craythur

BraziliaNZ wrote: »

The gentrification of that area was a total failure imo.

Yup, agree. Smithfield never really took off as a happening area, did it? But I find the Grand Canal Dock area soulless.

Sunnyisland

Imo people who live in there own city/country never appreciate its beauty (usually to busy or working) and it takes tourists or people visiting from outside city/country to appreciate them.

I personally wouldent find Dublin any more uglier than a lot of other similar sized cities,Of course it has places in which it could improved but it all takes time and money.

The Scientician

Dublin has its beauty spots but it could do with a hell of a lot more effort on the part of retailers, planners and residents alike to make it beautiful. Also, what's with all the signposts with nothing on them? Or 3 or 4 different types of bus stop in a short row? Would it kill them to put all the information on one post?

[Jackass]

There are so many things wrong with Dublin city, I don't even care to mention them any more. I'v given up on the place.

John Mason

we were in Bahrain over the New Year, now that's an ugly place but it kind of made us realise how great dublin is, everything in the City is walkable.

Nothing was walkable in the Bahrain City, it was taxis the whole time and tbh,they were not that much cheaper then Dublin Taxis

There are some parts that are lovely and other parts that are hidious.

That Dublin Bus Building on O'Connell makes me want to cry everytime i see it but cities evolve all the time.

seamusfamous

Parts of dublin are fab it has to be said

Grid.

....it'll be nice when it's finished!!:pac:

eric hoone

Nice city for the locals.
For instance sandymount would off the beaten track for tourists but you'd be hard pressed to find a beach so close to the centre of another european capital city.
You'd have to worry about what tourist stumble accross wandering around the city centre. Drug dealing on the Liffey boardwalk, social inequality staring you in the face near Christchurch/St Pats cathedrals. Temple bar on the weekends, mortified.

Cathaoirleach

This recent report outlines many of the issues

http://www.dublincivictrust.ie/_webgears/_filescontent/Defining-Dublins-Historic-Core.pdf

It's a good read.

MikeHoncho

Anyone who thinks Dublin is ugly clearly has not been to Birmingham.

HoPpiE

Poor Craythur wrote: »

Yup, agree. Smithfield never really took off as a happening area, did it? But I find the Grand Canal Dock area soulless.

I live at Grand Canal Dock now, but have to move soon and am dreading not living in this area. It's easily the nicest place in the city centre.

greyed

Dublin is definetly not an ugly city, the problem is that its scruffy It has massive potential its just not realised for various bull**** reasons. Its rough around the edges but if you take your eyes off the street and look up at the place it has so much promise.

holystungun9

I'm no architect, but as nice as that new bridge is down by the convention centre, I appreciate the two sets of counter balance, riveted iron bridges around there much much more. My guess is that a lot of people don't take any notice of them as they walk past or drive over them. They are two sets of lifting bridges that have these big water tanks on top and really beautiful curved iron beams for them to roll back on. Trying not to sound like a weirdo, they are so so nice, especially if you appreciate the work involved their construction.

davearthurs

Dublin is very bad to get around as a pedestrian given the public transport is so bad, so unfortunately it means anything not in the dead center of the city is lost - IMMA, Smithfield, Collins Barracks etc.,

Anything modern and not from the Georgian period is basically ugly unfortunately. ie. anything we've built ourselves. Central bank area and that ugly new building + wasted space opposite the Olympia etc.,

But it's also a case that we (i.e. DCC) are terrible at maintaining anything in the city - cycle lanes, boardwalk, smithfield, o'connell street - the list goes on. As soon as something new is built to fanfare it is left to fall apart from that moment on. Bins are left until the last minute to empty.

There are very few roads really in the city center areas, yet the potholes and slap on tarmac fix it jobs are terrible. The area in front of Chapters bookshop has been ridiculously bad for ages but they haven't fixed it. Currently they have patched up one side - looks ugly though.

The Northside of the liffey city center is for some reason just left to fall apart. Step out at Tara street Dart station and the station is disgusting, never cleaned or looked after. They just don't bother at this stage. Yes there are a lot more dodgy characters and scumbags in the area, but that doesn't mean you should encourage that by just ignoring it.

If you can't maintain what you have you just aren't doing your job. And they can't use the excuse of not having money - it is in a large part a matter of enforcing the shops and owners to look after their area and not put up horrible signage and posters and clean up their shopfronts and wash down their pavements now and then. If the city had a proper lord mayor system with power you could sort out a lot of things pretty quick. Doesn't seem to be the will there for some reason.

The Orb

The centre gas nice parts but other parts that have to be levelled. Also O'Connell St. , as the city's main street is a shameful dump. Tatty shops, scumbags, junkies and dangerous at night. O'Connell St and it's environs should be a showpiece for the city but falls way way short.

davearthurs

Not PC but I've always felt that the problem is you have too many council flat complexes in close proximity to the very center of the city off O'Connell Street - I can't think of any other city that has this. So I don't think they will ever be able to clean up that area and make it safer.

But there is no excuse for allowing all the fast food joints to open beside each other. I think there is a supermacs, burger king and McDonalds beside each other on O'Connell street. Why? And do they really think they can get in better retailers when they fill it up with fast food joints and Spars?

The danger now though is that Grafton Street is getting a bit tatty as well. And if the underground thing opens there in the near future I'd imagine it will ruin it.

rebel10

From Cork, but must say I actually quite like parts of Dublin. I love the mix of architecture and the fact that you can almost trace our past through the tenement houses, Georgian/Victorian buildings and of course the modern buildings of our "wealthy" period.
Sometimes I feel like there isin't a huge effort to keep the city looking its best. I don't think Dubliners take as much pride in their city as many other city dwellers do.
I was talking to an American student last week who was over for a short break while studying in England. He remarked that he found Dublin to be quite souless, the people less friendly than elsewhere in the country and that he ended up finding his two day stay there boring as he had ran out of things to visit. I think Bord Failte, the Government or whoever else is in charge of tourism here need to make a much greater effort in the Capital.

Brussels Sprout

I wasn't overfamiliar with Dublin in the past having only gone up there to go to the odd gig or to the zoo when I was a kid but over the past few months I've had to go up there every 2-3 weekends.

All in all I think it's a very unpleasant city. It's drab, grey and dirty. There's a lack of greenery in the city centre and O' Connell street seems to populated mostly by fast food outlets, mini markets and tacky tourist shops. It seems to me that a substantial amount of the allure of Dublin appears to be based around it's nightlife and drinking establishments with the result that there's not a whole pile out there for non drinkers.

In terms of architecture and general feel I think that Cork is a lot more charming as a city even though it's not really a fair comparison given the disparity in sizes between the two.

There seems to be a massive problem as well with gypsies, junkies and tramps. This gives certain parts of the city centre a very unpleasant and intimidating feel. Auckland in New Zealand is a city with a similar population to Dublin but it doesn't appear to have any of these kind of characters and as a result is a far more pleasant city centre to visit.

david75

In fairness, Auckland is also thousands and thousands of miles away from anywhere and hardly has access points for the factions you mentioned.

Dublin is a really green city from the air, i do agree the people and the local authority dont do enough to spruce it up(and when they do scaldies&stag parties usually ruin it) and impose better planning on signage etc (the dreaded 'how many spars/centras do we really need? debate) but things like the countless 'Bag shops', Carrolls of Dublin, etc they're there for the tourists and feeding off that but they're also a terrible blight on the city centre.

Compulsory purchase order the lot and offer the space to high end European/US retailers. They do it with IT investment so why not retail?

Dublin's just a bit scruffy. it has some beautiful spots as well it has to be said.

Blisterman

Is the solution really to fill Dublin with the same shops they have in every other city in the world? Surely they should be encouraging indiginous retailers.

david75

Well we're allowing Tesco to wipe out every independent retailer in the country by voting with our feet it seems, so why not?

Talisman

If you raise your eyes above the street level there are actually quite a few beautiful buildings in Dublin.

Dublin's biggest problem for its size is the volume of traffic - the car is king in a city where everything is within walking distance! I find it hilarious that Westmoreland street has four lanes of traffic and it's one way, you'd swear it was Manhattan looking across at the Westin hotel. O'Connell bridge can handle four lanes of traffic, then O'Connell street only has two! Pedestrians are almost tripping over each other crossing the bridge.

The pollution that cars create makes the whole city grimey. If cars were banned from the city centre it would make for a better experience for people and also improve the air quality.

Areas such as Parnell Square could also be much improved.