Irelands next city

rainybillwill · 13-07-2019 11:06pm #1

Which will be irelands next city? Looks like the Government want Athlone to be a midlands city which makes sense. Drogheda has been pushing for a city status a while now. Sligo has a location which is in need of investment so a city in the north west would be great for the people. Maybe tallaght or Dún Laoghaire will get city status in the future?

Gatling · 13-07-2019 11:08pm

Tallaght has to be close the population is almost bigger than all the others mentioned and growing

Poor Uncle Tom · 13-07-2019 11:10pm

Kilkenny, I'd say, they've been trying for a while now.

policarp · 13-07-2019 11:14pm

Moneygall.
The Barak O'Bama Plaza is busier than most towns
so that must put it in the running.

policarp · 13-07-2019 11:16pm

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

Kilkenny, I'd say, they've been trying for a while now.

Is that not the marble city

road_high · 13-07-2019 11:20pm

rainybillwill wrote: »

Which will be irelands next city? Looks like the Government want Athlone to be a midlands city which makes sense. Drogheda has been pushing for a city status a while now. Sligo has a location which is in need of investment so a city in the north west would be great for the people. Maybe tallaght or Dún Laoghaire will get city status in the future?

Dont see why one location should be chosen over others and have state money lavished on it. Portlaoise is already well ahead of Athlone on population as is Kilkenny and Carlow yet somehow Athlone (which is a kip btw) is seen as some kind of holy grail. Ditto Sligo which barely registers 20k people.

Poor Uncle Tom · 13-07-2019 11:21pm

policarp wrote: »

Is that not the marble city

Naw that's just policarp, it's like a city just smaller as the hooker once said about a certain van dyke....

road_high · 13-07-2019 11:21pm

Gatling wrote: »

Tallaght has to be close the population is almost bigger than all the others mentioned and growing

Tallaght is just a suburb of Dublin. Which is already a city. Makes zero sense to make it a city when it’s already part of one

Danzy · 13-07-2019 11:22pm

Athlone should have been pushed as a city for the last few decades, on location alone.

Yurt2 · 13-07-2019 11:23pm

Sligo or Athlone are the most 'city-like' of the candidates. The counties surrounding Sligo (Leitrim / Roscommon / Donegal) would stand to benefit greatly from Sligo gaining city status and some concentrated investment and government attention.

branie2 · 13-07-2019 11:26pm

How about Birr or Tullamore?

road_high · 13-07-2019 11:29pm

Danzy wrote: »

Athlone should have been pushed as a city for the last few decades, on location alone.

Why? What’s so special about it and it’s location that makes it more important?

road_high · 13-07-2019 11:31pm

Yurt! wrote: »

Sligo or Athlone are the most 'city-like' of the candidates. The counties surrounding Sligo (Leitrim / Roscommon / Donegal) would stand to benefit greatly from Sligo gaining city status and some concentrated investment and government attention.

It should be about providing services to people where they actually live not where you’d like them to live. There’s a long list of towns already considerably bigger than both of these that need development and services for people that actually live there already

Sharp MZ700 · 13-07-2019 11:32pm

Danzy wrote: »

Athlone should have been pushed as a city for the last few decades, on location alone.

Athlone should have been pushed into the bog decades ago.

The J Stands for Jay · 13-07-2019 11:33pm

Yurt! wrote: »

Sligo or Athlone are the most 'city-like' of the candidates. The counties surrounding Sligo (Leitrim / Roscommon / Donegal) would stand to benefit greatly from Sligo gaining city status and some concentrated investment and government attention.

Ah yeah, a town that's hours away becoming a city will surely improve the lives of everyone on Donegal...

corner of hells · 13-07-2019 11:34pm

I'm kinda thinking Intel would make a nice city .

13-07-2019 11:34pm

I think Sligo would be a good idea.

I live in Drogheda and from what I can see the only reason we want city status is for the extra funding (which is fair enough - the town's falling apart and the Garda service is at best a parody of a police service).

Sligo seems like a good way to split things up. But wasn't Athlone kind of already picked? in the Ireland 2040 thing? Did they not pretty much say (without actually stating it outright) that it'll be the next city.

listermint · 13-07-2019 11:36pm

road_high wrote: »

Tallaght is just a suburb of Dublin. Which is already a city. Makes zero sense to make it a city when it’s already part of one

Maybe city status might give it a bloody gardai station it deserves. One where they don't have to rent out office space on the hotel next door.

It's absolutely shocking in 2019 that a population of that size has a station that small and it's incredibly understaffed. Must be one of the worst in the country per head of population

rainybillwill · 13-07-2019 11:36pm

Yurt! wrote: »

Sligo or Athlone are the most 'city-like' of the candidates. The counties surrounding Sligo (Leitrim / Roscommon / Donegal) would stand to benefit greatly from Sligo gaining city status and some concentrated investment and government attention.

Sligo was the 8th largest urban area in Ireland in 1990 before the boom. The north east could do with some investment

Gatling · 13-07-2019 11:36pm

road_high wrote: »

Tallaght is just a suburb of Dublin. Which is already a city. Makes zero sense to make it a city when it’s already part of one

It's essentially gone from village to town and still growing with a population of 64,000 and still growing and expanding its safe to say it won't be a suburb forever makes sense to me ,and many others I know for who would be more qualified than me to talk about it ,

Yurt2 · 13-07-2019 11:38pm

road_high wrote: »

It should be about providing services to people where they actually live not where you’d like them to live. There’s a long list of towns already considerably bigger than both of these that need development and services for people that actually live there already

Counties like Tipperary, Clare and North-Cork benefit greatly from having a city like Limerick (university, hospitals, employment opportunities, cultural outlets) in their region. Ditto for parts of Clare and Mayo with Galway city.

That part of the country (North-West) is by far the most 'rural' and could do with a city of scale.

Dormitory towns of Dublin like Portlaoise and Kildare (and to an extent Drogheda) already are in the gravitational pull of the capital.

policarp · 13-07-2019 11:38pm

branie2 wrote: »

How about Birr or Tullamore?

Too close to Athlone.

Yurt2 · 13-07-2019 11:41pm

McGaggs wrote: »

Ah yeah, a town that's hours away becoming a city will surely improve the lives of everyone on Donegal...

Depends what part of Donegal you are talking about. North-Donegal, like Inishowen and Letterkenny already look to Derry. The south of the county is quite a bit away from Derry and would look more towards Sligo.

rainybillwill · 13-07-2019 11:43pm

McGaggs wrote: »

Ah yeah, a town that's hours away becoming a city will surely improve the lives of everyone on Donegal...

I think Bundoran is less then 30mins from Sligo.

4068ac1elhodqr · 13-07-2019 11:51pm

Save any argument and just create a brand new shinny eco-city.
Call it 'mylovelytown' or 'townycitymctownface'. Slap it somewhere in the middle of the Island where is no lights on.

The Chinese lads could probably come in and autobot-3DP/build it within 3mths flat for the price much less than a new ChildersHospital.
5G, hyperloop, high-rise, carbon neutral, bike lanes and all that jazz for 50 thousand folks.

Datuk Vaderthir · 13-07-2019 11:52pm

road_high wrote: »

Why? What’s so special about it and it’s location that makes it more important?

Its the geographical centre of the country. Its the type of thing Federations do, Nigeria with Abuja, Brazil with Brasilia, thats two that come to mind. Australia did the same with Canberra which lies geographically equidistant between Melbourne and Sydney. Then you have Germany which has Berlin as its nominal capital, but its political capital (also due to its Federal structure) has chopped and changed over the decades from Weimar, to Berlin, to Bonn and then back to Berlin. The Netherlands has the Hague. The list goes on.

And althoughh I'm Irish, Dublin by the grace of God, it 'might' take the 'heat' off property prices in Dublin itself if a new civil service administrative capital was made, but I'd be against it on ideological grounds knowing that the likes of Fianna Fail would have themselves and their mates in the trough like a gang of rabid dogs.

rainybillwill · 13-07-2019 11:53pm

Gatling wrote: »

Tallaght has to be close the population is almost bigger than all the others mentioned and growing

Well there is plans for Sydney to be split into three cities so same could happen to Dublin.

Wtf ? · 13-07-2019 11:55pm

What would be the benefits to a town being upgraded to city status ?

Always Tired · 13-07-2019 11:59pm

Sligo is very close to Donegal, sure, but having lived there for over a decade I can't say it ever felt like I lived in a city, always felt like a town that is just a bit bigger than the bog standard Irish town. However, it COULD have been the next Galway but the recession decimated the town. Literally felt like half the town got boarded up in the space of 18 months (and it did have the record for highest percentage of shops lying empty on one street at the height of the recession).

Talk to anyone from town and they'll tell you what the situation is: the Chamber of Commerce are a disaster and developments are blocked all the time.

The bus that goes through town was actually reduced to only run once every hour, supposedly to lack of demand. Not sure if that was true reason, but it only made demand even less because there are scarcely 2 points in town you couldn't walk between in under 30 minutes.

Without the hospital and the college it would be a ghost town, neither the 2 shopping centres in town can keep units rented, there's always talk of one of them closing down.

It's a shame because I loved a lot about the town, went to college there and made a lot of friends there as a blow in. A lot more amenable to 'outsiders' than I've found Donegal to be, and better social life too.

Yurt2 · 14-07-2019 12:03am

Wtf ? wrote: »

What would be the benefits to a town being upgraded to city status ?

Loads of new branded stationary, letterheads and sinage for the local government. The resultant tax-bounce from the stationary boom will fund a metro system (Sligo High-speed Area Rapid Transit - the SHART) and the Shane Filan Superdome. Winter Olympics bid for 2030; they can cover Ben Bulben in fake snow.

mvl · 14-07-2019 12:03am

Eva Gorgeous Windsock wrote: »

5G, hyperloop, high-rise, carbon neutral, bike lanes and all that jazz for 50 thousand folks.

Eirloop.

touts · 14-07-2019 12:07am

We don't need another city. Most of the current ones we have are towns with notions. Real cities around the world have populations greater than the whole population of this island. Looking for your local town or village to be granted city status is akin to a lad in a 3 bed semi sticking a blow up pool from lidl in his back garden and then boasting in work that how he owns a house with a swimming pool. Everyone knows the truth and is laughing at him.

Yurt2 · 14-07-2019 12:18am

touts wrote: »

We don't need another city. Most of the current ones we have are towns with notions. Real cities around the world have populations greater than the whole population of this island. Looking for your local town or village to be granted city status is akin to a lad in a 3 bed semi sticking a blow up pool from lidl in his back garden and then boasting in work that how he owns a house with a swimming pool. Everyone knows the truth and is laughing at him.

In Japan, areas of 30'000 population or over can be accorded city status, in some states in the US it can be as low as 2'000 people.

These are legally defined 'proper' cities. But what the hell would Americans and Japanese know about cities anyway?

ToddyDoody · 14-07-2019 12:39am

touts wrote: »

We don't need another city. Most of the current ones we have are towns with notions. Real cities around the world have populations greater than the whole population of this island. Looking for your local town or village to be granted city status is akin to a lad in a 3 bed semi sticking a blow up pool from lidl in his back garden and then boasting in work that how he owns a house with a swimming pool. Everyone knows the truth and is laughing at him.

Interesting you picked a male protagonist here.

I'd go with a city being.any place that consistently generates more that 50bn in economic activity annually.

Any other criterias are nice but ultimately toothless.

padd b1975 · 14-07-2019 12:45am

Castlebar

Datuk Vaderthir · 14-07-2019 12:49am

There's several benchmarks you can use.

1. The old one was having a Cathedral with a Bishop in it. Oddly enough by that definition, tiny little Ferns, population barely 1,500, would be defined as a city. So too Saint David's (population 3,000) in Wales.

2. Economic activity. Only one city fits your metric in Ireland - North and South - Dublin.

But beyond that, lets have a look. Different countries have different population levels, so it varies drastically. What the Chinese and Indians call a city is something VAST, like Guangzhou, Shenzhen (Which are now so densely packed in that corridor of 140km that they may as well be just one VAST crazy conurbation. I mean thats something like 30 Million people, proving that a dialect (Cantonese) is a language without an Army and a Navy.

Dublin would barely make city status by Chinese standards in the Eastern Industrial Provinces (States), but out in Xinjiang, Tibet, Heilongjiang where population levels are much more sparse, it a bloody big city.

In America Dublin would be a city, but again thats 'State dependent'. On the East Coast and in California, its not large. In the Mid West - yes.

ToddyDoody wrote: »

Interesting you picked a male protagonist here.

I'd go with a city being.any place that consistently generates more that 50bn in economic activity annually.

Any other criterias are nice but ultimately toothless.

RoyalCelt · 14-07-2019 12:59am

policarp wrote: »

Is that not the marble city

The city where drunken hens go to get a pair of hairy marbles alright.

It makes sense to push Athlone, Drogheda and Sligo. Drogheda and Dundalk should be hubs where they look to get investment instead of Dublin which has enough as it is.

Athlone as a central hub makes perfect sense and Sligo too. Sadly the government will probably focus on Dublin and not give a **** about the rest.

derossi · 14-07-2019 1:47am

Datuk Vaderthir wrote: »

There's several benchmarks you can use.

1. The old one was having a Cathedral with a Bishop in it. Oddly enough by that definition, tiny little Ferns, population barely 1,500, would be defined as a city. So too Saint David's (population 3,000) in Wales.

2. Economic activity. Only one city fits your metric in Ireland - North and South - Dublin.

But beyond that, lets have a look. Different countries have different population levels, so it varies drastically. What the Chinese and Indians call a city is something VAST, like Guangzhou, Shenzhen (Which are now so densely packed in that corridor of 140km that they may as well be just one VAST crazy conurbation. I mean thats something like 30 Million people, proving that a dialect (Cantonese) is a language without an Army and a Navy.

Dublin would barely make city status by Chinese standards in the Eastern Industrial Provinces (States), but out in Xinjiang, Tibet, Heilongjiang where population levels are much more sparse, it a bloody big city.

In America Dublin would be a city, but again that's 'State dependent'. On the East Coast and in California, its not large. In the Mid West - yes.

I don't think comparing to the likes of China or the U.S. is appropriate, Ireland probably fits in to most U.S. states a few times over. City status is an economic center for investment and it is proper that this small country looks to have more cities.

Basing most activity towards Dublin is understandable and makes some sense but it has or will lead to an overload of population requirements and services that exist or are planned. Build other places up outside of Dublin, start with infrastructure and housing and businesses will come and they will become cities but they key is investment in the basics, housing, infrastructure, services, etc. If they are comparable to Dublin then the rest will come.

14-07-2019 8:19am

md23040 wrote: »

I don’t think a monorail, white elephant airports like Knock, fully connected dual carriageway access, nor city status would make any difference to the economy of either Sligo or Letterkenny even though any sort of incentives would be gladly welcomed.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/bishop-greets-proposal-for-new-city-in-the-west-1.286043
There have been proposals for a new city in the West based on Knock. One from an American was to be called our lady's city.

I think picking a winner and trying to develop it is probably not the best way to go. Spend some time and money developing the villages, towns and cities we already have and see how they develop. Maybe give them a bit of leeway about how funds are spent. I don't see why the various town councils were shut (other than the cost of paying the councillors - if cost is a problem don't pay them). A town like Tuam is well capable of some local administration and priority setting.

Hangdogroad · 14-07-2019 8:57am

road_high wrote: »

Dont see why one location should be chosen over others and have state money lavished on it. Portlaoise is already well ahead of Athlone on population as is Kilkenny and Carlow yet somehow Athlone (which is a kip btw) is seen as some kind of holy grail. Ditto Sligo which barely registers 20k people.

If its a kip competition Portlaoise wins hands down over Athlone. A city has to have something of interest beyond being a glorified commuter suburb for Dublin.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 14-07-2019 9:02am

I can’t understand the reasoning behind pushing for city stays for Sligo. It’s a****hole with nothing going for it. Very poor shopping compared to many other towns. The two out of town retail parks are dead, parking is limited for the town centre shopping centres and it’s just not a nice place to have to go to.

The only good thing about Sligo is the fact that you can drive through it without having to stop.

rossie1977 · 14-07-2019 9:07am

Athlone has more chance of major growth given it's closer proximity to Dublin than Sligo and it's better transportation links. With house pricing moving in one direction the 90 minute commute between Athlone and Dublin will become a thing soon I suspect for many. Athlone has potential for grown on both it's east and west suburbs. Athlone IT on east and the former Elan on West saw big growth for town in the 90s/00s

Sligo town is right in middle of Sligo so unlike Athlone it's not really close to other countries like Athlone is to Roscommon, Offaly, Longford, Galway. Sligo town is closest to rural north Leitrim. One thing that does piss me off though is Athlone town council need to stop redesignating parts of Connacht as Westmeath..the boundary between Connacht and Leinster is the Shannon so everything west of Shannon is Connacht and County Roscommon.

rafatoni · 14-07-2019 9:08am

Gatling wrote: »

It's essentially gone from village to town and still growing with a population of 64,000 and still growing and expanding its safe to say it won't be a suburb forever makes sense to me ,and many others I know for who would be more qualified than me to talk about it ,

thought it was closer to 100k.. you can be in one part of tallaght and its 8km to another part? How can that be all the one place. Massive area neess to be broken out.

I was down in Ranelagh last night. 5 min walk one way in donnybrook 5 min anothrr way is rathmines and 5 min back was milltown.

Harry Palmr · 14-07-2019 9:10am

Sure China was supposed to be building a city in the midlands, if anyone knows how to use this sites terrible search function you might be able to find the thread about it.

Athlone whatever it's current merits is the obvious location - bang central, on the Shannon, adjacent to an east-west motorway, rail links. the only thing it lacks is an international airport of course

Cee-Jay-Cee · 14-07-2019 9:10am

rainybillwill wrote: »

I think Bundoran is less then 30mins from Sligo.

You do realise though that you have to drive for another 2 to 2.5hrs to get to north Donegal!

road_high · 14-07-2019 9:22am

Hangdogroad wrote: »

If its a kip competition Portlaoise wins hands down over Athlone. A city has to have something of interest beyond being a glorified commuter suburb for Dublin.

Comparing which is rougher is like asking which limb you’d like amputated. I never got the fascination with Athlone and why it should be pushed over above a dozen already larger towns

rossie1977 · 14-07-2019 9:38am

road_high wrote: »

Comparing which is rougher is like asking which limb you’d like amputated. I never got the fascination with Athlone and why it should be pushed over above a dozen already larger towns

There isn't really a dozen bigger towns though

Dundalk, Drogheda, Bray, Navan, Kilkenny, Ennis, Carlow, Tralee, Portlaoise, Newbridge and Naas are the only ones bigger and the population of Naas/Portlaoise and Athlone is extremely close ie circa 22,000 at last count.

biko · 14-07-2019 9:56am

Athlone is the natural hub of Ireland and should get many more opportunities. Slap up an IKEA to start with, and any new data centres.
Once the city takes off it'll pull people from all regions.

14-07-2019 9:58am

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

Kilkenny, I'd say, they've been trying for a while now.

branie2 wrote: »

How about Birr or Tullamore?

Oh no, please leave Birr and Kilkenny alone.

They're my favourite urban areas in the land, I always divert to one or the other when driving down home. Hide them, don't spoil them!

Take Tullamore, take Athlone (gladly). I'll pay you to take Nenagh. They're the least-loved of my babies.

snotboogie · 14-07-2019 10:05am

Datuk Vaderthir wrote: »

There's several benchmarks you can use.

1. The old one was having a Cathedral with a Bishop in it. Oddly enough by that definition, tiny little Ferns, population barely 1,500, would be defined as a city. So too Saint David's (population 3,000) in Wales.

2. Economic activity. Only one city fits your metric in Ireland - North and South - Dublin.

But beyond that, lets have a look. Different countries have different population levels, so it varies drastically. What the Chinese and Indians call a city is something VAST, like Guangzhou, Shenzhen (Which are now so densely packed in that corridor of 140km that they may as well be just one VAST crazy conurbation. I mean thats something like 30 Million people, proving that a dialect (Cantonese) is a language without an Army and a Navy.

Dublin would barely make city status by Chinese standards in the Eastern Industrial Provinces (States), but out in Xinjiang, Tibet, Heilongjiang where population levels are much more sparse, it a bloody big city.

In America Dublin would be a city, but again thats 'State dependent'. On the East Coast and in California, its not large. In the Mid West - yes.

Cantonese isn't really spoken that much in Shenzhen, its a migrant city and Mandarin is the lingua franca. The vast majority of the population of shenzhen are not from Guangdong Province originally.

14-07-2019 10:07am

letterkenny is set up and would be a striking statement for balancing the region.

sligo is a town without much potential for growth and difficult to put much more infrastructure in, between hills and coast.

athlone is a one street kip tbh. do well to turn it into a town that works before getting notions about throwing more at it. and its too close to dublin to make a difference.

anything south or east of athlone and you're just boosting a suburb of dublin

money better spent on rail solutions tbh

Irelands next city

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