How Long Will It Take For Letterkenny To Become A Supercity

md23040

From 1980 to 2011 the population has Letterkenny has grown from 7,000 to 19,558 residents. So just for fun, if it continued this trajectory into the future, then its footprint would be the size of Dublin in 2135, and below is the footprint of Dublin in the Northwest - using MapFrappe.



By the year 2228 it'll be the size of Greater London



By the year 2238 it'll be the size of Greater Los Angeles Area



By the year 2258 it'll be the size of Greater Tokyo



Don't panic though, the world will be run by scorpions and locusts before this actually happens.


Note add/on - in reality though, Letterkenny has been growing faster than the national average and the County has been growing faster than the average too, but its hard to understand why Donegal is so rural compared to the rest of Ireland and there is such a diversity between the population of main town Letterkenny to that of the county population. Excluding Dublin here's the population breakdown of the next largest urban centres (2011 census) to respective county population.

Cork has 150,000 inhabitants - County 518,000 therefore 29% of County live in the city
Limerick has 96,000 inhabitants - County 192,000 therefore 48% of County live in the city
Galway has 76,000 inhabitants - County 251,000 therefore 30% of County live in the city
Waterford has 52,000 inhabitants - County 113,000 therefore 41% of County live in the city
Letterkenny has 19,500 inhabitants - County 161,000 therefore 12.1% of County live in the city
Sligo has 19,500 inhabitants - County 65,000 therefore 30.0% of County live in the city

Therefore with the average being 36% county populations living in the main county town, means Letterkenny should have at least of 48,000 to 58,000 residents. Can not understand why Donegal has such a variant, might be to do with partition, and Derry being the main centre for the North West prior to annexation. Urbanisation is the key to economic growth and the Letterkenny should continue expanding rapidly more than the national average for the foreseeable future which can only be good for the county.

By the way this student did a good piece on Letterkenny urban planning (pity the councillors were not similarly up to speed in the past) - See Here

And here's interest stats on the county census since the famine - it's interesting to note that in 1911 Donegal had more people living in it then whilst Ireland had 2.9 million citizens, compared to 4.6 million today.

echo beach

md23040 wrote: »

Urbanisation is the key to economic growth and the Letterkenny should continue expanding rapidly more than the national average for the foreseeable future which can only be good for the county.

While unbanisation may be the key to economic growth it does have social implications and I'm not so confident that rapid growth in Letterkenny will be good for the county as a whole.

Already the towns and villages in the immediate hinterland of Letterkenny and indeed further away are suffering from the constant draw of shoppers into Letterkenny with its wide selection of retail outlets. The closure of bank branches in particular has impacted greatly on these towns and a walk around any one of them will be enough to see the number of vacant business premises and general lack of commercial and social activity.

Another noticeable factor over the past ten to twenty years is the number of people working in these towns, e.g teachers, who commute daily from Letterkenny. Previously the hinterland provided the workers to Letterkenny for retail, major factories like Unifi and the hospitals but now increasingly the limited number of jobs in the hinterland are filled by those living in Letterkenny. (This is an observation, not a criticism of those who either chose to or are forced to commute.)
Combined with emigration and lack of job opportunities, these communities are being devastated and I see the growth of Letterkenny as part of the problem rather than as a potential solution. I hope I'm wrong and look forward to the insights of those with more knowledge of the economic model at work here.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Letterkenny boomed in the Celtic Tiger years but has slowed down considerably in the last 5 or 6 years. It probably will never even be a city and if it dies, I'd say it'll not be within the next 50 years.

md23040

[/QUOTE][/FONT]

donegaLroad wrote: »

it will take the same length of time for Letterkenny to become a supercity, as it will take Linfield to win the Sam Maguire.

True – but it’s only a slapstick tag. However, it will be interesting to see the next set of census stats in 2016 and what this throws to light. The drop in national unemployment has been as a result of jobs growth combined with non-nationals repatriating back to their homelands and young locals forced to seek better job opportunities abroad. Letterkenny may suffer as a result of this exodus as 16% of its population are non-nationals with higher relative unemployment.

There are 17643 persons unemployed in the county in May 2015 out of a total labour force in of 72,146 (census 2011) making the county unemployment rate still well over 20%. This is an absolute disgrace, considering Ireland has 209,700 unemployed overall (officially excluding quango schemes etc), means Donegal has over twice the level of unemployment compared to the national average.

Also, how come can somewhere like Derry have the highest unemployment rate in Northern Ireland at 8.1% (NI Average May 6.6%) and economically, it does not have much going on, with not many civil service related jobs etc. Northern Ireland also had a building boom fall-out that had a cataclysmic effect on the economy, but maybe delaying the austerity cuts had helped, and they have yet to feel the pain. But Derry having three times less unemployment than Donegal seems hard to believe (unless NI figures are seriously gerrymandered).

The main issue that exacerbates Donegal further is the North West and Donegal are the forgotten lands. Both Derry and Donegal are the respective poor cousins within their national areas and will continue to suffer from under investment. However, a point that should arise, with the elections to be held no later than next April, is the infrastructural deficient affecting the county, and this should be rapidly addressed as it is widely known as one of the many but main precursors holding back the potential of the area.

The N14 road improvement scheme should be recommenced in the short term, along with the inner relief road at Tinneys to Lisnennan in Letterkenny as well as the Ballybofey by-pass etc. The government has already started to green light major projects that were put on ice in 2007, like N11 Arlow dual (16km), Gorey Dual (28 km), New Ross By-pass (15km) and Tuam/Gort motorway (55 km).

You are right Echo Beach – Letterkenny has dramatically increased in size since the 1980’s, but is under sized relative to its catchment, but the primary growth has not been as a result of economic activity and going forward you are right this is a concern that needs to be addressed. Should this be left on hold it could be further detrimental to the town as well as county and its ability to sustain itself in the right sort of way.

John Doe1

Our best bet is becoming part of Northern Ireland where they give city status to every townland ( well Newry and Armagh:p)

Donegal county council should set up a highland clearance scheme and remove everyone from the really remote parts (fanad, parts of west Donegal) and setting them up in shanty towns on the outskirts of Letterkenny increasing the population and urban area. Alternatively they could encourage a mandatory 12 child policy and within a generation we would be bigger than Derry. It's simple really:p

echo beach

John Doe1 wrote: »

Donegal county council should set up a highland clearance scheme and remove everyone from the really remote parts (fanad, parts of west Donegal) and setting them up in shanty towns on the outskirts of Letterkenny increasing the population and urban area.

While your suggestion is tongue-in-cheek (I hope) it isn't so far away from what is already happening by neglect as the younger population in the more remote areas move to the UK, Europe and Australia in search of work.
The older residents who are left find the services that they need (like post offices, policing, out-of-hours doctor, etc) are so reduced as to make it difficult, if not impossible for them to remain.

Richard

John Doe1 wrote: »

Our best bet is becoming part of Northern Ireland where they give city status to every townland ( well Newry and Armagh:p)

Although Armagh has been the ecclesiastic capital of Ireland for centuries!

md23040

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

Letterkenny boomed in the Celtic Tiger years but has slowed down considerably in the last 5 or 6 years. It probably will never even be a city and if it does, I'd say it'll not be within the next 50 years.

The projections based on past data are worse than first anticipated and this is going to be one mothership of a super-city/mega-city. Forget Nuclear War, Mega Tsunamis, Asteroids strikes etc, even if the rest of the planet stands still on population growth then Letterkenny poses a clear and present danger to the Earths future within the next 500 years should it follow its past growth trajectory, since Earth only has a landmass of 5-1/2 quadrillion square feet whilst population of Letterkenny could exceed 1 quadrillion.



So, my advise would be to buy property that's cheap by comparison to other mega cities while you can, centrally located rather than in the suburbs of North Tipp by 2259.

Also (ahem) whilst living in the present - and driving to the North during the weekend, noticed the GPS was in aerial view and could see the footprints of Derry and Letterkenny – what intrigued me was the footprint of Letterkenny was not that much smaller than Derry, with a population approaching 93,500 or 4.8 times more people in its environs – so time for MapFrappe to investigate.

Letterkenny Urban Footprint





Compared to Derry City Limits





Letterkenny occupies the entire space as the City side of Derry (easily) and the city side accounts for at least 60% of the overall Derry footprint, means with the deduction of maths, should Letterkenny have the same population as Derry but retain its urban density per square km then it would be 2.9 times bigger than Derry’s present footprint (4.8 times pop x 60%). Or to get into context, its footprint would be similar size to Belfast City.

This catastrophe of urban planning needs to be fully addressed before Letterkenny thinks of becoming a supercity in the near future. But really, the low population density over such an extended area is absolute travesty and shameful indictment on the planning system, to allow such unheeded ribbon developments in areas way past Glencar Irish, like Cluain Ard and Gleann Rua, so far off the beaten path from the town centre, that's more than a 7km round trip walk to Tesco’s/Aldi etc should people not have a car. To allow such large housing developments in an area that’s up a hill, has no shops in its vicinity, no bus provision, whilst at the same time there was such an abundance of green space much closer to the town was so short sighted and disgraceful. The towns present development defies all logic, and any future development should IMO only be allowed with the present footprint – but will this happen, probably not.

Future development should be extended again within the present confined footprint into such area's as below, with arterial roads linking as shown (to constrain land locking) and quell LA’esque style of urban development previously adopted.



It’s interesting that there does not seem to be any future spatial strategy plan for the town from 2015 forward (the last plan was 2009 to 2015). Everything seemed to be ad-hoc, on a case by case development basis with any prospective property developer etc, with no thought to need, social consequences etc.

Overall though, Letterkenny's continued growth will be good for the County, and the environs could benefit considerably from considered town planning going forward, as it's not too late. Winston Churchill could tell the planners a thing or two - "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

JupiterKid

Letterkenny is a disaster in terms of its spatial form - it is far too spread out along arterial roads with ample green space available close to the town centre. It needs a serious amount of urban consolidation and increased density residential development.

echo beach

JupiterKid wrote: »

Letterkenny is a disaster in terms of its spatial form - it is far too spread out along arterial roads with ample green space available close to the town centre. It needs a serious amount of urban consolidation and increased density residential development.

Can't argue with that but how exactly is it going to happen?

retalivity

echo beach wrote: »

Can't argue with that but how exactly is it going to happen?

A green belt around the town as it is now would be a good start...

Mint Sauce

When ROI and NI become a single nation, and Derry, and Letterkenny merge into one small ciity.

Not before then.

babybuilder

md23040 wrote: »

[/FONT]

True – but it’s only a slapstick tag. However, it will be interesting to see the next set of census stats in 2016 and what this throws to light. The drop in national unemployment has been as a result of jobs growth combined with non-nationals repatriating back to their homelands and young locals forced to seek better job opportunities abroad. Letterkenny may suffer as a result of this exodus as 16% of its population are non-nationals with higher relative unemployment.

There are 17643 persons unemployed in the county in May 2015 out of a total labour force in of 72,146 (census 2011) making the county unemployment rate still well over 20%. This is an absolute disgrace, considering Ireland has 209,700 unemployed overall (officially excluding quango schemes etc), means Donegal has over twice the level of unemployment compared to the national average.

Also, how come can somewhere like Derry have the highest unemployment rate in Northern Ireland at 8.1% (NI Average May 6.6%) and economically, it does not have much going on, with not many civil service related jobs etc. Northern Ireland also had a building boom fall-out that had a cataclysmic effect on the economy, but maybe delaying the austerity cuts had helped, and they have yet to feel the pain. But Derry having three times less unemployment than Donegal seems hard to believe (unless NI figures are seriously gerrymandered).

The main issue that exacerbates Donegal further is the North West and Donegal are the forgotten lands. Both Derry and Donegal are the respective poor cousins within their national areas and will continue to suffer from under investment. However, a point that should arise, with the elections to be held no later than next April, is the infrastructural deficient affecting the county, and this should be rapidly addressed as it is widely known as one of the many but main precursors holding back the potential of the area.

The N14 road improvement scheme should be recommenced in the short term, along with the inner relief road at Tinneys to Lisnennan in Letterkenny as well as the Ballybofey by-pass etc. The government has already started to green light major projects that were put on ice in 2007, like N11 Arlow dual (16km), Gorey Dual (28 km), New Ross By-pass (15km) and Tuam/Gort motorway (55 km).

You are right Echo Beach – Letterkenny has dramatically increased in size since the 1980’s, but is under sized relative to its catchment, but the primary growth has not been as a result of economic activity and going forward you are right this is a concern that needs to be addressed. Should this be left on hold it could be further detrimental to the town as well as county and its ability to sustain itself in the right sort of way.[/QUOTE]

Major disgrace that there has been any progress on the Derry-Belfast motorway. The North's politicians should be ashamed of themselves.

For Forks Sake

John Doe1 wrote: »

Our best bet is becoming part of Northern Ireland where they give city status to every townland ( well Newry and Armagh:p)

Lisburn and Newry won theirs in a raffle: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/1872287.stm

md23040

Is anyone else noticing the increase in Letterkenny traffic mayhem this year - in the papers again but not of any political currency outside Donegal.

The Bonagee inner relief road is critically needed and has been talked about since 1979 (36 years) but unfortunately it will not happen anytime soon since Government road expenditure has been capped until 2017, for primarily existing infrastructural improvements only.

As a result of mainly increased Northern cross border trade, towns like Ballybofey, Letterkenny etc are going to become victims of their own success with increased traffic misery at peak times being counterproductive. The inner relief road at about 750 metres of extra road construction to include a new bridge is not much to be asked and will be dwarfed in scale to the proposed Galway by-pass, presently in planning, estimated to cost €500m - completion 2020 (which in reality will be €800m).

The Average Annual Daily Traffic on the Clanree to Poleglass roundabout is greater than the daily traffic count on sections of the 40km M9 from Kilkenny to Waterford. Also towns like Clonmel, Tullamore, Kilkenny all have proper functioning orbital inner relief roads, but not similar sized Letterkenny. Gnashing of teeth and poor cousin syndrome will continue it seems for the future whilst other parts of Ireland develop.

Fingers crossed this is pessimistic, and with improved government coffers, Letterkenny and Donegal might get a glimmer of hope in the next budget.

md23040

http://www.donegaldemocrat.ie/news/home/249045/donegal-county-councillor-says-bonagee-link-is-key-to-solving-letterkenny-traffic-problems.html

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread Muffler but the previous posts mentioned the need for proper urban/road planning in Letterkenny (maybe the jest title should best altered).

According to the above link, it could 15 years before the Bonagee by-pass is operational. Letterkenny traffic is absolute chaos at peak times and what will it be like during summer season with Northern tourists travelling through and rallly weekend doesn't bear thinking about. I feel sorry for traders paying through the nose for commercial rates and it's so off putting to go shopping etc as a leisure activity.

The bypass albeit needs a bridge for part of the 1000 metres is not the end of the world financially compared to other road schemes around the country getting the green light (42 major projects recently approved by NRA). With Pramerica expanding, loads of new developments, opportunities with Brexit (possibility of UK/NI companies relocating part of their operations), you would think the authorities would have more lateral thinking. Depressing really.

There are certain easy improvements that could be made to assist traffic flow, like changing the one way system from JJ Reid's Volkswagen dealership to the new Dunnes roundabout back to a normal two way road.

/ rant completed....

Cee-Jay-Cee

Changing the road from new Dunnes to the bottom of Rosemount would create a complete bottle neck as they'd have to make a roundabout at the rosemount end which would end up the size of a 10c coin as space is non existant and so would cause more problems than it would solve.

They need to take traffic that is only passing through away from the town completely. Like has been proposed the relief road at Bonagee needs to be fast tracked. They need to develop the leck road to make it a proper two lane road and extend it from the hideout on out as far as Cornwall and build a new bridge in that area. That would mean people coming from west of letterkenny and only passing though the town on their way to Derry Strabane Dublin Sligo Galway etc don't need to pass through the busiest part of the town on their journey.

If I were king I'd also develop the Coravaddy road to a full two lane road to relieve the port road and blaney road of traffic heading towards ballybofey/donegal town in the evenings and vice Versa in mornings...but I'll never be king.

md23040

md23040 wrote: »

By the way this student did a good piece on Letterkenny urban planning (pity the councillors were not similarly up to speed in the past) - See Here

And here's interest stats on the county census since the famine - it's interesting to note that in 1911 Donegal had more people living in it then whilst Ireland had 2.9 million citizens, compared to 4.6 million today.

Fewer children, therefore greater population percentage loss through Emigration?

Add in the fact that, unlike in bigger cities/towns, people tend not to "downsize" so much (partly because people are expecting their families to return, and there is a housing shortage, partly because the family home tends to remain the family home, here)

This catastrophe of urban planning needs to be fully addressed before Letterkenny thinks of becoming a supercity in the near future. But really, the low population density over such an extended area is absolute travesty and shameful indictment on the planning system, to allow such unheeded ribbon developments in areas way past Glencar Irish, like Cluain Ard and Gleann Rua, so far off the beaten path from the town centre, that's more than a 7km round trip walk to Tesco’s/Aldi etc should people not have a car. To allow such large housing developments in an area that’s up a hill, has no shops in its vicinity, no bus provision, whilst at the same time there was such an abundance of green space much closer to the town was so short sighted and disgraceful. The towns present development defies all logic, and any future development should IMO only be allowed with the present footprint – but will this happen, probably not.[/FONT]

Future development should be extended again within the present confined footprint into such area's as below, with arterial roads linking as shown (to constrain land locking) and quell LA’esque style of urban development previously adopted.



It’s interesting that there does not seem to be any future spatial strategy plan for the town from 2015 forward (the last plan was 2009 to 2015). Everything seemed to be ad-hoc, on a case by case development basis with any prospective property developer etc, with no thought to need, social consequences etc.

Overall though, Letterkenny's continued growth will be good for the County, and the environs could benefit considerably from considered town planning going forward, as it's not too late. Winston Churchill could tell the planners a thing or two - "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

I have to admit, I hate trying to find addresses in Letterkenny, now.
Even when you find the relevant estate, it can be very hard to work out the layout, to find a house number. Some of the estates are more like a rabbit warren than a housing estate, with one estate leading into another, etc.

JupiterKid wrote: »

Letterkenny is a disaster in terms of its spatial form - it is far too spread out along arterial roads with ample green space available close to the town centre. It needs a serious amount of urban consolidation and increased density residential development.

True. But then again, afaik, a lot of the "green" areas are farmland. In addition, higher density residential development, together with more frequent heavy rain, would likely cause problems with flooding, so serious upgrade of the drainage syatem would probably be necessary before even considering increasing the density, imo.

Pixel Eater

The calamity of bungalow blitz is really undermining Donegal's towns and villages, including Letterkenny. People are scattered over the country rather than concentrated together where services can be provided. The county, and rural Ireland in general, will go nowhere unless this is sorted out.

doc22

Latest cenus showed letterkenny and donegal decreased in population so could be quiet a wait till it becomes a supercity

NIMAN

Is Letterkenny technically even a city, let alone a supercity?

I thought it was a town.

L1011

NIMAN wrote: »

Is Letterkenny technically even a city, let alone a supercity?

I thought it was a town.

It isn't a city. There are very few cities in Ireland - even some with claimed city centres or city halls like Kilkenny or Sligo aren't

Pixel Eater

How do they define rural and urban? I mean one of those sprawling estates, on the edge of Letterkenny but still several miles from the town centre and surrounded by fields, is that counted as urban or rural?

joeysoap

Phew!!
Pressure off. Letterkenny along with Sligo and Ennis have a slight drop in population,

Largest and fastest growing towns
Drogheda, with a population of 40,956 (up 6.2% since April 2011) remained the largest town in Ireland. Swords (39,248) and Dundalk (39,004) complete the top three. Ennis (25,276 persons) remained the largest town in Munster. Sligo with 19,199 persons was Connacht's largest town, while Letterkenny (19,274 persons) was the largest town in the three Ulster counties. The latter three towns experienced a slight decline in population since April 2011.

Drogheda is the largest town in Ireland - but not the largest town in Louth