Irish Concepts of Urban Living Must Change

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Companies need to be in central locations to attract the right staff and access to amenities I'd say. Facebook etc don't want to be in Navan.

People here have some weird ideas regarding distance and time... It takes just under an hour to drive from Athlone to Dublin. When i go from my home in north Xi'an to visit my girlfriend who lives just south of the city center, it takes me just over an hour to get there by subway. By taxi, probably twice as long considering traffic.

If good infrastructure/transport is there, then most people won't have any issues with travelling an hour or two each day. It's being stuck in traffic that causes people to consider traveling and hour to be a pain..

Companies are already leaving Dublin proper to set up in the countryside although I suspect that more will consider just leaving Ireland altogether. This is a damn expensive country to be in compared to many other countries.

cnocbui

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

I lived in Carlton so was right in the centre of things, it feels far denser than Dublin anyway but it does go out into Vic forever. I don't think there's any point comparing ourselves to Australia anyway given the size of the place.
Is your stance on this that sprawl is ok and we should be building outwards instead of up and more dense? I think that goes against anyone's idea of sensible planning.

I think decentralisation is a much better policy. Increase corporation tax for companies in Dublin to 22% and 14% for those 80 km or more from Dublin and that would probably solve most issues in a short space of time. Of course you would phase that in 2% at a time to dampen the squealing. People move to where jobs are far more than companies need to move to where people are. Has Apple had any problem whatsoever, attracting people to Cork from all over Europe and the World?

One of Ireland's biggest problems is the gutlessness and lack of imagination of it's governments. The public service runs the government.

Thelonious Monk

cnocbui wrote: »

Has Apple had any problem whatsoever, attracting people to Cork from all over Europe and the World?

Well no but Cork is Ireland's second city and has plenty of industry and attractions there, rent etc is through the roof there as well though.

MakingMovies2

MrAbyss wrote: »

You might want to do a bit more research my friend.

If is wasn't for the colossal amount of wealth taken from Dublin tax payers and given to provincial Ireland most of you would be living in mud huts gnawing on a blighted spud while mauling your rosary beads for salvation.


and that is not even hyperbole.

Go buy some heroin you scummy dub.

dd973

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Lived in Dublin and it was pure sh1te. I dont believe that so many people should be clustered together in such a small place. Living in the shticks now and much happier

Was back there the other week, it's funny how when you're away and visit it you see some things with more clarity, the city centre feels like a theme park and a Hiberno-London, the real Dublin for me is in places like Clontarf, Glasnevin or Dalkey, in a decent part of Cheshire now not far from Manchester and Liverpool if I want city stuff, far better quality of life, friendlier as well.

Anesthetize

cnocbui wrote: »

You go live in your precious high rise, I for one never will.

What a hugely convincing counter-argument.

Graces7

Anesthetize wrote: »

What a hugely convincing counter-argument.

It is actually the only valid one ie personal choice and belief. As opposed to dictatorship mentality

MrAbyss

cnocbui wrote: »

I think decentralisation is a much better policy. Increase corporation tax for companies in Dublin to 22% and 14% for those 80 km or more from Dublin and that would probably solve most issues in a short space of time. Of course you would phase that in 2% at a time to dampen the squealing. People move to where jobs are far more than companies need to move to where people are. Has Apple had any problem whatsoever, attracting people to Cork from all over Europe and the World?

One of Ireland's biggest problems is the gutlessness and lack of imagination of it's governments. The public service runs the government.

So murder the city of Dublin so GAA teams in Roscommon can have enough players from the new microsoft facility in Roosky to get back at the neighbouring parish who robbed them of the 1935 Bogball Inter-Parish semi-final?

I got news for you. The people in high-tech in Dublin don't like, want or need GAA, Ploughing Competitions or the parish priest coming around for tea. Cork city is also not Roosky or Buncrana.

riclad

Large tech companys will not move to rural area,s ,if the tax is raised to 22 per cent they will stop coming to ireland or reduce the no of employee,s .
in the age of brexit we cannot afford to raise tax,s ,most of the tax revenue comes from high income earners, and large companys .
certain type of companys like google or facebook will only have offices in citys ,also they need fast broadband.
Large parts of rural ireland have mediocre broadband.

Andrewf20

riclad wrote: »

Large tech companys will not move to rural area,s ,if the tax is raised to 22 per cent they will stop coming to ireland or reduce the no of employee,s .
in the age of brexit we cannot afford to raise tax,s ,most of the tax revenue comes from high income earners, and large companys .
certain type of companys like google or facebook will only have offices in citys ,also they need fast broadband.
Large parts of rural ireland have mediocre broadband.

Broadband in the commuter counties of kildare, meath etc in my experience are as good as Dublin. I don't see why businesses can't set up out there more near clane, cellbridge, dunboyne and the like. There's still a huge pool of potential employees from Dublin and the satelite counties.

Thelonious Monk

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Broadband in the commuter counties of kildare, meath etc in my experience are as good as Dublin. I don't see why businesses can't set up out there more near clane, cellbridge, dunboyne and the like. There's still a huge pool of potential employees from Dublin and the satelite counties.

Why do you think they're not setting up in these places? There was a guy posting in another thread that used to do a lot of work with the IDA and said they do their best to get them to locate elsewhere, but they want to be in the centre of things in Dublin.

elefant

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Broadband in the commuter counties of kildare, meath etc in my experience are as good as Dublin. I don't see why businesses can't set up out there more near clane, cellbridge, dunboyne and the like. There's still a huge pool of potential employees from Dublin and the satelite counties.

Large international companies won't set up in rural areas because, amongst other reasons, their employees won't want to move and live there.

FreeThePants

The prestige factor definitely isn't there outside of Dublin, bar a few places like Cork, Galway or Limerick but certain things I would reckon are far less of a mitigating factor such as broadband and connectivity for the most part, transport (public is woeful everywhere but for American multinationals etc a 45-60 minute drive is a spin around the corner), the skilled workforce still applies u less you go somewhere very remote, and of course lower costs for certain types of facilities (our awful weather is absolutely perfect for saving on the obscene air co ditioning bills these pick up while not running any risks of being too cold).

I could also be wrong but think people might be more willing to move outside of Dublin than 10 or 15 years ago. I'm moving back to Ireland in the near future, am from Dublin, and getting work outside of Dublin (for affordability as much as anything else) would be the absolute dream.

Either way, it is clear as day that we need to spread things around a bit more somehow, even if it is more a case of just beefing up some of the areas of Dublin and looking for them to spread out more naturally/gradually. I'm really not sure how to incentivise companies to do this, but the current setup is just unsustainable, both inside and outside of the capital.

cnocbui

riclad wrote: »

Large tech companys will not move to rural area,s ,if the tax is raised to 22 per cent they will stop coming to ireland or reduce the no of employee,s .
in the age of brexit we cannot afford to raise tax,s ,most of the tax revenue comes from high income earners, and large companys .
certain type of companys like google or facebook will only have offices in citys ,also they need fast broadband.
Large parts of rural ireland have mediocre broadband.

Large tech companies will move to cities, and towns outside of Dublin. Apple's in Cork. Did it ever occur to you that not all companies are 'tech'.

You don't get Brexit, like most people. Foreign English speaking companies that want a subsidiary in the EU now have only one choice - Ireland.

Companies like Google and Facebook are basically just data centres. They are only in Ireland because it's miserable cold year round and they can save huge sums of money by not having to use electricity to cool their data centres, which can be located anywhere near big power transmission lines and fibre trunk routes. Have you forgotten that Apple were going to site a data centre near Athenry?

I'm in rural Ireland, I have views to mountains which currently have snow on their tops:



I'm surrounded by green fields, there's grass growing up the middle of the road, I'm on FTTH and get 150 Mbps and could get 1000 Mbps if I was up for paying a bit extra.

To say you haven't a clue is to put it mildly.

cnocbui

MrAbyss wrote: »

So murder the city of Dublin so GAA teams in Roscommon can have enough players from the new microsoft facility in Roosky to get back at the neighbouring parish who robbed them of the 1935 Bogball Inter-Parish semi-final?

I got news for you. The people in high-tech in Dublin don't like, want or need GAA, Ploughing Competitions or the parish priest coming around for tea. Cork city is also not Roosky or Buncrana.

WTF?

Thelonious Monk

cnocbui wrote: »

Large tech companies will move to cities, and towns outside of Dublin. Apple's in Cork. Did it ever occur to you that not all companies are 'tech'.

You don't get Brexit, like most people. Foreign English speaking companies that want a subsidiary in the EU now have only one choice - Ireland.

Companies like Google and Facebook are basically just data centres. They are only in Ireland because it's miserable cold year round and they can save huge sums of money by not having to use electricity to cool their data centres, which can be located anywhere near big power transmission lines and fibre trunk routes. Have you forgotten that Apple were going to site a data centre near Athenry?

I'm in rural Ireland, I have views to mountains which currently have snow on their tops:



I'm surrounded by green fields, there's grass growing up the middle of the road, I'm on FTTH and get 150 Mbps and could get 1000 Mbps if I was up for paying a bit extra.

To say you haven't a clue is to put it mildly.

You haven't a clue. Data centres? Google has something like 8000 employees in Dublin, mostly around the "Silicon Docks" area. What has that got to do with data centres? What has the new Facebook campus that will employ 1000s in Ballsbridge or their huge offices at Grand Canal Dock got to do with data centres?
Also - as we already said - Cork is a city. That's why Apple are there.
The reason data centres would go in Athenry is because they employ about 10 people, so staffing wouldn't be an issue.

jimgoose

cnocbui wrote: »

...Companies like Google and Facebook are basically just data centres. They are only in Ireland because it's miserable cold year round and they can save huge sums of money by not having to use electricity to cool their data centres...

Wrong. Google and Facebook are, in Ireland, mainly about software development and various customer services. And the local climate has about as much to do with a D/C aircon bill than it has with the torque output of a turbodiesel! :pac:

Graces7

MrAbyss wrote: »

So murder the city of Dublin so GAA teams in Roscommon can have enough players from the new microsoft facility in Roosky to get back at the neighbouring parish who robbed them of the 1935 Bogball Inter-Parish semi-final?

I got news for you. The people in high-tech in Dublin don't like, want or need GAA, Ploughing Competitions or the parish priest coming around for tea. Cork city is also not Roosky or Buncrana.

What are you talking about? IS this how you see rural life? If you weren't so gravely out of kilter and erroneous this would be funny. As it is it is disturbing.

Thelonious Monk

Funny how this thread about how to improve urban living has been hijacked by country people telling us how great it is down there

Graces7

Witchie wrote: »

Pretty much the way of life here. I live in Kuala Lumpur on the 34th floor in a 3 bed, 2 bath apartment with a swimming pool and gym on the 8th floor. Oh and children's playground.

The first 5 floors are carparking, a small grocery shop, a launderette and security and management offices. From the 9th to the 39th floor there are 16 3 bed apartments on each floor. There are 4 blocks of these together. We all have a balcony.

This isn't a great complex though. Another nearby has a 2 storey shopping mall, 2 storeys of offices and carparking and then 30 floors of apartments.

We need to build a few such developments and connect up the public transport. My boyfriend and I don't have a car as we can get really cheap taxi(grab - similar to Uber) anywhere or hop on buses, monorail or lrt.

Having apartment blocks with amenities built in like a supermarket, shops, cinemas etc cuts down on transport and carbon footprint. Even if not in the same building but next door.

I have a mall with a Tesco around the corner too.

It just makes sense. Even if Dublin only did 10/12 storeys it would sort a lot of the homeless problem out.

Even when I was working, this would be anathema to me. Far too many people. More enclosed than anything else. Would feel like a prison.

Thelonious Monk

Graces7 wrote: »

Even when I was working, this would be anathema to me. Far too many people. More enclosed than anything else. Would feel like a prison.

No one is going to force you to live in a city, you don't need to be in this discussion

McGrath5

cnocbui wrote: »

Large tech companies will move to cities, and towns outside of Dublin. Apple's in Cork. Did it ever occur to you that not all companies are 'tech'.

You don't get Brexit, like most people. Foreign English speaking companies that want a subsidiary in the EU now have only one choice - Ireland.

Companies like Google and Facebook are basically just data centres. They are only in Ireland because it's miserable cold year round and they can save huge sums of money by not having to use electricity to cool their data centres, which can be located anywhere near big power transmission lines and fibre trunk routes. Have you forgotten that Apple were going to site a data centre near Athenry?

I'm in rural Ireland, I have views to mountains which currently have snow on their tops:

I'm surrounded by green fields, there's grass growing up the middle of the road, I'm on FTTH and get 150 Mbps and could get 1000 Mbps if I was up for paying a bit extra.

To say you haven't a clue is to put it mildly.

An you rely solely on the private car every time you want to leave your mcmansion, a horrible existence.

Graces7

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

No one is going to force you to live in a city, you don't need to be in this discussion

How very impolite and discourteous of you... REALLY! Of course I do as a concerned citizen. What affects the place affects me deeply

Graces7

Graces7 wrote: »

Even when I was working, this would be anathema to me. Far too many people. More enclosed than anything else. Would feel like a prison.

I honestly don't get this. Such a thing would be the case of retards running the city. Last year, I lived in Chongqing, a mega city in China, which is set up in a mountainous region with two large rivers running through it. Population is around 20-25 million for the district, and the city area includes most of them.

It doesn't have this enclosed feel. There's open areas for gardens/parks. Wide two and four lanes for standard roads through the city area, and eight lanes on the outskirts. The metro/subway system is efficient and access points are everywhere. There's large areas given to shopping areas, with parks nearby. CQ has traffic issues like any other city but I never felt smothered by all the people nearby... exception perhaps on the special holidays when everyone goes shopping, but that's easily avoided.

Or take Xi'an, where I live now. Population of around 9-10 million. Planned city with a block feel to it for the inner areas, and the outers end to sprawl a bit. Far more parks and open areas separating districts or factory/industrial/technological/commercial zones . Again, I've never felt enclosed or smothered by the numbers of people.

Still, I did get such a sensation when I lived in Tokyo, which has a very dense feel to it sometimes, but there's no need for Ireland to follow the Japanese way of doing mega cities.

jam_mac_jam

Jesus does everything have to be city v country. Different people like different things.

Stovepipe

lawred2 wrote: »

There should be hardly any underground spaces. Cars and cities don't mix. Planning for future city centre buildings should not include much more than 10% parking spaces for residents

Funny that.I was in Berlin for a two-week holiday and the city was dead easy to get around in,by using a combination of public transport and cars. Every household in Berlin is allowed two vehicles (as we were told by the locals) and each household has one street parking permit and one space inside the underground car park or courtyard of their block. There were lots of older vehicles in use and people didnt seem to be engaged in any frantic race to buy the 201 car. Cycling was everywhere and like Amsterdam, everyone cycles and every household has bikes and there is secure bike parking everywhere and drivers pay attention and respect cyclists,precisely because everyone is a cyclist as well as a car driver. Incidentally, European apartment blocks tend to have courtyards,with play space and often garages or sheds for each family. We stayed in one such apartment block and it was airy, spacious, well insulated and a pleasure to live in and it had a recycling bin in the courtyard for each apartment. The apartment was just inside what had been East Berlin and the Govt had paid for them to be brought up to West German standards and they were in fine order. No shoddy Priory hall stuff tolerated.

Andrewf20

elefant wrote: »

Large international companies won't set up in rural areas because, amongst other reasons, their employees won't want to move and live there.

Intel is in Leixlip, Shire out near Dunboyne etc. People who live in Dublin can commute there too.

Andrewf20

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Why do you think they're not setting up in these places? There was a guy posting in another thread that used to do a lot of work with the IDA and said they do their best to get them to locate elsewhere, but they want to be in the centre of things in Dublin.

Im not sure - why they want to be in the centre is what I dont understand. What do they actually want in the city centre that cant be got on the outskirts.

Thelonious Monk

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Intel is in Leixlip, Shire out near Dunboyne etc. People who live in Dublin can commute there too.

Intel is a massive factory, not suitable for a city - Shire is a pharmaceutical company, that's probably a factory of some sort too no?
Yeah - Shire is Takeda now and it's a big plant of some kind in Dunboyne. Pfizer are in Lucan area too somewhere, so not everywhere is suited to Dublin CC but I guess office based jobs in multinationals generally are.

Graces7

Deleted User wrote: »

I honestly don't get this. Such a thing would be the case of retards running the city. Last year, I lived in Chongqing, a mega city in China, which is set up in a mountainous region with two large rivers running through it. Population is around 20-25 million for the district, and the city area includes most of them.

It doesn't have this enclosed feel. There's open areas for gardens/parks. Wide two and four lanes for standard roads through the city area, and eight lanes on the outskirts. The metro/subway system is efficient and access points are everywhere. There's large areas given to shopping areas, with parks nearby. CQ has traffic issues like any other city but I never felt smothered by all the people nearby... exception perhaps on the special holidays when everyone goes shopping, but that's easily avoided.

Or take Xi'an, where I live now. Population of around 9-10 million. Planned city with a block feel to it for the inner areas, and the outers end to sprawl a bit. Far more parks and open areas separating districts or factory/industrial/technological/commercial zones . Again, I've never felt enclosed or smothered by the numbers of people.

Still, I did get such a sensation when I lived in Tokyo, which has a very dense feel to it sometimes, but there's no need for Ireland to follow the Japanese way of doing mega cities.

I know you don't and you don't have/need to. Just different personalities and characters and needs. To say MUST as in the title?