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Dublin: is it "too big"?

«13

Comments

  • #2
    johnmcdnl
    Registered Users Posts: 3,739 ✭✭✭johnmcdnl


    Godge wrote: »
    The motorways were done first all right but overdone is the correct word. The M1, M4, M7 and M8 are more than justified but the M3 and M9 are not needed yet compared to other projects. The extension of the DART, the LUAS and Metro North are more important.

    The importance of Dublin to the country as a whole should not be understated. As jobs keep getting lost all over the country, it seems to me that the only positive announcements from the IDA cover Dublin. Why? Because it is the capital, because it is densely populated etc.

    you don't need the M3... the people of Cavan and Meath who commute to Dublin daily do... Your not the one that's stuck in Kells, Navan every day... my aunt lives in Kells and she's already noticed the huge difference the M3 has made to the town... and yes its for the better...

    luas dart are more important to you maybe but for the people in cavan and meath the M3 is gonna be hugely important to us...


    ireland is bigger than Dublin yano


  • #3
    Riddickcule
    Closed Accounts Posts: 50 ✭✭Riddickcule


    johnmcdnl wrote: »


    ireland is bigger than Dublin yano
    Relax he was justing making a point, it's not his opinion.


  • #4
    Tragedy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,057 ✭✭✭Tragedy


    johnmcdnl wrote: »
    you don't need the M3... the people of Cavan and Meath who commute to Dublin daily do... Your not the one that's stuck in Kells, Navan every day... my aunt lives in Kells and she's already noticed the huge difference the M3 has made to the town... and yes its for the better...

    luas dart are more important to you maybe but for the people in cavan and meath the M3 is gonna be hugely important to us...


    ireland is bigger than Dublin yano
    There's a lot less people in Cavan and Meath than in Dublin.


  • #5
    mcgeebers
    Registered Users Posts: 26 ✭mcgeebers


    As a Dub, I think the M3 and other motorway developments are fantastic.

    The rollout of motorways makes all parts of the island easily accessible and more importantly economically viable in terms of industry and creating employment. There should be a motorway from Dublin - Donegal, Dublin - Westport, etc. and the Atlantic Corridor should continue to be prioritised.

    The present set-up is too Dublin-oriented in my view. We have a fantastic country which should be equally accessible from an infrastructure standpoint


  • #6
    johnmcdnl
    Registered Users Posts: 3,739 ✭✭✭johnmcdnl


    Tragedy wrote: »
    There's a lot less people in Cavan and Meath than in Dublin.

    I know that and i'm not tryin to deny that - but I'm just pointing out that we pay tax as well.. it's only fair a few euro of it goes back to us as well...


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  • #7
    spacetweek
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 4,951 Mod ✭✭✭✭spacetweek


    johnmcdnl wrote: »
    I know that and i'm not tryin to deny that - but I'm just pointing out that we pay tax as well.. it's only fair a few euro of it goes back to us as well...
    You're right of course it should - but proportionately. Since very few people live in the Border areas like Cavan, they can't expect anywhere near as much to be spent on them.

    I know it might seem like all the big building projects are going on in Dublin, but this is just because over a million people live there. Their infrastructure is going to cost billions.

    If anything a motorway from the Cavan border all the way to Dublin is way more than what would be provided in other countries. You're lucky!


  • #8
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    They might get a Virginia bypass some time but that is pretty much it :)


  • #9
    murphaph
    Registered Users Posts: 19,018 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    johnmcdnl wrote: »
    ireland is bigger than Dublin yano
    In case you hadn't noticed, Dublin has woeful public transport for a city its size. Dublin is chronically underfunded wrt transport. All those motorways radiating out from the M50 help the regions they connect to Dublin MUCH more than they help Dublin itself.

    It's time to redress the balance and give Dublin the funding required to develop proper transport in the city that is the beating heart of the Irish economy.


  • #10
    Aard
    Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    johnmcdnl wrote: »
    I know that and i'm not tryin to deny that - but I'm just pointing out that we pay tax as well.. it's only fair a few euro of it goes back to us as well...
    The average person [pdf] in the Greater Dublin Area (Dublin itself would be higher) contributes 23% more to the state's economy than the national average, while the average person in the Border region contribues 29% less than the national average. It only makes sense that Dublin should receive the benefits of big infrastructural projects like the Interconnector and Metro before other areas get their motorways built; if Dublin doesn't get these, then its economy stagnates, and the entire nation suffers as a result. It's not a case of Jackeens-vs-Culchies; Dublin is the gateway to the country for economic growth, so if the rest of the country expects to prosper in the future, Dublin has to be prioritised.

    Another way of putting it: There's a person (Ireland) who has a bad heart (Dublin) and several broken limbs (Cavan, Meath, Mayo, etc). The hospital only has enough money for either a heart transplant, or mending the arms and legs. No matter how healthy the arms and legs are made, if the heart is defective, they'll expire pretty soon anyway; it's wasted money. At least if the heart is given the care, the limbs will have a chance to survive.

    Not a perfect analogy, but it delivers the message.


  • #11
    Jayuu
    Registered Users Posts: 740 ✭✭✭Jayuu


    Aard wrote: »
    The average person [pdf] in the Greater Dublin Area (Dublin itself would be higher) contributes 23% more to the state's economy than the national average, while the average person in the Border region contribues 29% less than the national average. It only makes sense that Dublin should receive the benefits of big infrastructural projects like the Interconnector and Metro before other areas get their motorways built; if Dublin doesn't get these, then its economy stagnates, and the entire nation suffers as a result. It's not a case of Jackeens-vs-Culchies; Dublin is the gateway to the country for economic growth, so if the rest of the country expects to prosper in the future, Dublin has to be prioritised.

    Another way of putting it: There's a person (Ireland) who has a bad heart (Dublin) and several broken limbs (Cavan, Meath, Mayo, etc). The hospital only has enough money for either a heart transplant, or mending the arms and legs. No matter how healthy the arms and legs are made, if the heart is defective, they'll expire pretty soon anyway; it's wasted money. At least if the heart is given the care, the limbs will have a chance to survive.

    Not a perfect analogy, but it delivers the message.

    I'm not sure I agree with the analogy but I can't come up with a better one to explain my point. While I do accept your point about people in Dublin paying more and yes they should be entitled to some benefit out of that (and I live in Dublin by the way), one of the reasons that Dublin has grown so much is that industry and business did not want to relocate beyond Dublin because of the poor infrastructure beyond the city.

    Now we have gone some way to improving that with the road building programme of the last few years but we're still not there yet. And until we have a decent infrastructure to cover the whole country, Dublin will continue to grow in a manner that's not helpful for the rest of the country and with all the attendent social problems that a large poorly laid out conurbation brings.

    Dublin needs investment, yes, but it should be balanced with continuing development of the infrastructure of the rest of the country. We should also be encouraging growth outside of Dublin in those area that now do have a reasonable connection to the capital.


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  • #12
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    The N3 mentioned a few posts back is easily the worst example too. The N8 goes to Cork, the N6 to Galway but the N3 goes to .........Ballyshannon :)

    I did say at length that if the motorway from Cork to Limerick to Galway together with Mullingar - Longford and Arklow - Rathnew were done that would then complete the National Motorway Network pretty much. The rest may or may not be expressway 2+2 roads at 100kph or a mix of that and S2


  • #13
    D.L.R.
    Registered Users Posts: 1,282 ✭✭✭D.L.R.


    Jayuu wrote: »
    And until we have a decent infrastructure to cover the whole country, Dublin will continue to grow in a manner that's not helpful for the rest of the country and with all the attendent social problems that a large poorly laid out conurbation brings.

    Dublin will grow whether we will it or not. Its how we deal with that growth.

    The problem is this prevailing attitude that Dublin is somehow "too big".

    Its not too big - its just badly organised, because we're crap at predicting growth patterns and dealing with them ahead of time.

    Other similarly dominant national capitals in Europe are generally better organised in terms of transport and spatial planning. Their size and national dominance isn't an issue.

    The rest of Ireland is small change in economic terms. Yes we need to build up the national infrastructure, but we need to worry less about Dublin's relative size, and just build for the population where they reside. Dublin is Ireland too. Lets not cut off our nose to spite our face.


  • #14
    Jayuu
    Registered Users Posts: 740 ✭✭✭Jayuu


    D.L.R. wrote: »
    Dublin will grow whether we will it or not. Its how we deal with that growth.

    The problem is this prevailing attitude that Dublin is somehow "too big".

    Its not too big - its just badly organised, because we're crap at predicting growth patterns and dealing with them ahead of time.

    Other similarly dominant national capitals in Europe are generally better organised in terms of transport and spatial planning. Their size and national dominance isn't an issue.

    The rest of Ireland is small change in economic terms. Yes we need to build up the national infrastructure, but we need to worry less about Dublin's relative size, and just build for the population where they reside. Dublin is Ireland too. Lets not cut off our nose to spite our face.

    Saying that Dublin is too big is a reality not just "a prevailing attitude" and the idea that we just have keep building because that's where people are, is the attitude that got us into the sorry mess that Dublin is. We just kept building and building. That sort of pressure put house prices in Dublin way into the stratosphere and have now created an entire generation of "negative equity" mortage holders. The idea that we should just keep building on top of the problems we already have is ridiculous.

    I remember a study being produced in 1987 which suggested that in order to combat the influence of Dublin and to promote decent regional development, the country should relocate the capital to the west coast and build a new city on the west coast, centred in and Limerick and east Clare and using Shannon as its main international airport. While such an idea was a bit of a "pie in the sky idea", perhaps if proper spatial strategies had been put into place back in the late 80s and 90s we might have managed to slow down the growth of Dublin so that we wouldn't have the infrastructural deficit that we have now. I also remember the initial Dublin Transport Initiative in the early 90s which was supposed to try and create an integrated transport network for the city but which kept being compromised by political and business interests.

    We have 40% of the country living within a fifty mile radius of the centre of Dublin. That is way too big for a country of our size. I'm not saying that we don't address the infrastructure deficit that exists in Dublin but we shouldn't take sorting these problems as giving us permission to allow Dublin to continue to grow in size. We're just going to create a whole new set of problems for the next 40 years. We should be planning to limit growth in the Dublin region for the next 20-30 years and that means actively promoting proper regional strategies alongside of alleviating the mess that Dublin is in, from a transport perpsective.

    It is possible to do both things. It just takes a bit of vision and less pandering to political whims.


  • #15
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,523 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    The N3 mentioned a few posts back is easily the worst example too. The N8 goes to Cork, the N6 to Galway but the N3 goes to .........Ballyshannon :)

    And you'll be damned to find a sign that believes it goes beyond Cavan. I've seen a few that have "SOUTH DONEGAL" but they're even rare.


  • #16
    D.L.R.
    Registered Users Posts: 1,282 ✭✭✭D.L.R.


    Jayuu wrote: »
    We have 40% of the country living within a fifty mile radius of the centre of Dublin. That is way too big for a country of our size. We should be planning to limit growth in the Dublin region for the next 20-30 years

    I've taken just two of your points..

    Firstly, I still don't quite see how 40% of the country living withing 50 miles of Dublin is a real problem. Its not like Ireland is going to tip over into the sea. People gravitate towards the east of the island where the trade links are, whats the big deal. Happens all over the world.

    And second, regards "limiting" the size of Dublin. Migration patterns aren't something we should suppose to be able to affect all that much with schemes and initiatives. Let the east be densely populated, and build the necessary infrastructure. Simple, predictable, and actually possible.


  • #17
    murphaph
    Registered Users Posts: 19,018 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    Jayuu wrote: »
    I remember a study being produced in 1987 which suggested that in order to combat the influence of Dublin and to promote decent regional development, the country should relocate the capital to the west coast and build a new city on the west coast, centred in and Limerick and east Clare and using Shannon as its main international airport. While such an idea was a bit of a "pie in the sky idea", perhaps if proper spatial strategies had been put into place back in the late 80s and 90s we might have managed to slow down the growth of Dublin so that we wouldn't have the infrastructural deficit that we have now.
    So in order to save having to spend on infrastructure in Dublin, we'd have spent money on infrastructure on a green field site in the west of Ireland. Who the fcuk commissioned/published this report? They wouldn't be from the west would they?

    Why does Ireland think it should be any different to say Denmark, Norway or Finland....whose national capitals also dominate their economies: they are countries with similar small populations, it's just what happens when your population is pretty small. The same thing happens on a macro level in Germany: Berlin, Munich and Hamburg dominate the regions surrounding them (all similar sizes to Ireland) economically, with people leaving the more rural parts of Brandenburg or Bavaria, to live and find work in the cities. Why do so many people from rural Ireland think they should be excempt from a global trend. :confused:


  • #18
    Aard
    Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    murphaph wrote: »
    Why do so many people from rural Ireland think they should be excempt from a global trend. :confused:
    Mé Féinism.



    I would encourage everybody against developing Dublin to read this: Twice the Size [pdf]. Then tell me we don't need to prioritise the heart-transplant.


  • #19
    nordydan
    Registered Users Posts: 1,104 ✭✭✭nordydan


    MYOB wrote: »
    And you'll be damned to find a sign that believes it goes beyond Cavan. I've seen a few that have "SOUTH DONEGAL" but they're even rare.

    I think its policy nowadays to sign Cavan as the terminal destination. Then when you get near Cavan, Ballyshannon & Enniskillen are signed.


    There are still signs which have Donegal South, Enniskillen & Ballyshannon as terminal destinations (e.g. Ballyshannon, Enniskillen are on the old N3 out of Navan oi tink).


  • #20
    Jayuu
    Registered Users Posts: 740 ✭✭✭Jayuu


    murphaph wrote: »
    So in order to save having to spend on infrastructure in Dublin, we'd have spent money on infrastructure on a green field site in the west of Ireland. Who the fcuk commissioned/published this report? They wouldn't be from the west would they?
    :confused:

    Oh for God's sake!

    Actually as far as I can remember the study was done back in 1987 by a non-Irish professer. It wasn't a commissioned report, nor was it anything official. It was an attempt to show how even then back in the 80s there was a problem with the unchecked growth that was happening in Dublin. And it way underestimated how much Dublin would grow in the following twenty years. I think it also suggest high-speed rail connections and a full road network between Ireland's major cities but I can't be really sure about that.

    I live and work in Dublin and even I can see the problems that this city has. Its badly designed. Its too spread out and its has the worst infrastucture of any major European city. This has nothing to do with regional bias here. Don't put your own prejudices into your comments!

    Firstly, I still don't quite see how 40% of the country living withing 50 miles of Dublin is a real problem.

    Because it doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with a city of this size. And we're so far behind now that we're always going to struggle to catch up unless we really try to limit growth within this area. Even if we built everything mentioned in Transport 21, Dublin's infrastucture would still be barely able to cope. And lets face it most of what was proposed isn't going to be built at this stage.


    Stop looking at this as a Dublin vs The Rest argument. Its not. What it is, is an attempt to see how Dublin can become a better place to live, work, commute and be part of.


  • #21
    Aard
    Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    @Jayuu:

    I actually agree somewhat with the theme of that report you mentioned. I am all for relocating the Capital. Limerick would be good for several reasons:
    1. It has an international airport that is popular with the US, offering customs clearance;
    2. It is in the centre of the Galway-Limerick-Cork corridor, which is the only real part of the country to rival Greater Dublin;
    3. It has good connections to Dublin, i.e. the M7.
    I would be against building a New Town from scratch; Limerick City is already there. Money spent improving it would return more than if it was spent on greenfield. Moving the Capital to a smaller city would also allow proper decentralisation. Moving parts of the public sector to small towns dotted around the country was a disaster. I say amalgamate them in one decent-sized city that actually offers a real alternative. The move to a provincial city would also diminish a lot of the "TDs up in Dublin", urban-rural divide attitude; it would allow people in the west to feel closer to the workings of the country, both psychologically and literally.


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  • #22
    spacetweek
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 4,951 Mod ✭✭✭✭spacetweek


    Jayuu wrote: »
    Saying that Dublin is too big is a reality not just "a prevailing attitude" and the idea that we just have keep building because that's where people are, is the attitude that got us into the sorry mess that Dublin is. We just kept building and building. That sort of pressure put house prices in Dublin way into the stratosphere and have now created an entire generation of "negative equity" mortage holders. The idea that we should just keep building on top of the problems we already have is ridiculous.
    The problem was not home building or the growth of Dublin per se - it was the fact that necessarily any growth in population of the city meant physical expansion of it into the surrounding countryside. This link needs to be broken - look at the staggering number of derelict and inappropriately small buildings in the centre of Dublin. Large areas of the city centre are dead or dying and need to be razed to the ground. If all Dublin's new housing was built there instead of on the periphery, not only would we not have any more new developments on the outskirts which need expensive infrastructure to be provided, but the city centre would become dense enough to support investment such as a big metro and higher-quality public services.

    Also you've got it backwards with the house prices. Prices rise when supply doens't meet demand. Demand was high both due to native demand and also because of the high number of investors outbidding each other. According to this logic, the problem in Dublin was that we didn't build *enough* houses. We should have built more - but in the *centre*, not the edge.
    Jayuu wrote:
    Perhaps if proper spatial strategies had been put into place back in the late 80s and 90s we might have managed to slow down the growth of Dublin so that we wouldn't have the infrastructural deficit that we have now. I also remember the initial Dublin Transport Initiative in the early 90s which was supposed to try and create an integrated transport network for the city but which kept being compromised by political and business interests.
    Nonsense. When a city has an infrastructural deficit you build more infrastructure. You don't try to "slow down the growth of Dublin" - like starving a strong man to make him weaker.

    The plan mainly failed due to people with attitudes like you, who wished to decentralise Dublin instead of strengthening it.
    Jayuu wrote:
    We have 40% of the country living within a fifty mile radius of the centre of Dublin. That is way too big for a country of our size. I'm not saying that we don't address the infrastructure deficit that exists in Dublin but we shouldn't take sorting these problems as giving us permission to allow Dublin to continue to grow in size. We're just going to create a whole new set of problems for the next 40 years.
    No, we would only create a whole new set of problems if we then continued building on the periphery and in outlying towns like we've done so far. All new development must be within the existing city envelope.


  • #23
    spacetweek
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 4,951 Mod ✭✭✭✭spacetweek


    Aard wrote: »
    I actually agree somewhat with the theme of that report you mentioned. I am all for relocating the Capital. Limerick would be good for several reasons:
    1. It has an international airport that is popular with the US, offering customs clearance;
    2. It is in the centre of the Galway-Limerick-Cork corridor, which is the only real part of the country to rival Greater Dublin;
    3. It has good connections to Dublin, i.e. the M7.
    This nonsense about building a new capital has to stop.

    Limerick is Limerick, it doesn't need to be a capital. It has an international airport popular with the USA because for years we made people stopover there against their will while flying to and from Stateside. Its road connections are needed anyway and don't justify what you're proposing.
    Aard wrote:
    I would be against building a New Town from scratch; Limerick City is already there. Money spent improving it would return more than if it was spent on greenfield. Moving the Capital to a smaller city would also allow proper decentralisation. Moving parts of the public sector to small towns dotted around the country was a disaster. I say amalgamate them in one decent-sized city that actually offers a real alternative.
    All public offices are already amalgamated in one city - Dublin. Don't fix if it ain't broken.

    Before you would move Dublin, you need to figure out what the point is exactly. Fragmentation instead of cohesion; making Dublin smaller rather than larger; dispersal of assets instead of integration; incurring extra cost instead of less; duplication of infrastructure instead of rationalisation.

    Limerick needs more public transport, more jobs and more population. Dublin needs more infrastructure of all kinds and to continue growing slowly its population and adding jobs like it's already done. Transferring the capital to Limerick is unnecessary and needlessly destructive to Dublin.

    Though I would certainly agree that, as the centre of the Galway-Limerick-Cork axis, Limerick should be expanded to a larger size. At least doubled.


  • #24
    Aard
    Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    @Spacetweak:
    If I had my way, Dublin would be physically smaller, but with the same population. There would be a metro/dart network complemented by local busses. The Docklands would be more like La Défence. I completely agree with you. The reason for my suggestions was that while you, me, and many other thousands of people think this, most non-Dubliners hate the idea of Dublin - yet again - being invested in to the detriment of provincial towns. My idea was a compromise: one the one hand, let people know that it's not all about Dublin, and on the other, invest somewhere that has potential. Not spending millions on rural train-stations and the likes.


  • #25
    G_R
    Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 5,022 Mod ✭✭✭✭G_R


    Aard wrote: »
    @Spacetweak:
    If I had my way, Dublin would be physically smaller, but with the same population. There would be a metro/dart network complemented by local busses. The Docklands would be more like La Défence. I completely agree with you. The reason for my suggestions was that while you, me, and many other thousands of people think this, most non-Dubliners hate the idea of Dublin - yet again - being invested in to the detriment of provincial towns. My idea was a compromise: one the one hand, let people know that it's not all about Dublin, and on the other, invest somewhere that has potential. Not spending millions on rural train-stations and the likes.

    well tbh, anyone who thinks like this is quite clearly an idiot. We need politicians with enough balls to say to rural voters, look, there is only 500 people in this town, you dont need a motorway, int. airport, high speed train link and a specialist hospital to go with it. Ok, maybe a slight over-exaggeration, but seriously, I mean people have to start realising that, weather they like it or not, Dublin is the capital city, it is the country's economic powerhouse, and it is the most important place in the country, so it deserves i larger share of the public finances.

    But this is Ireland, so I don't see that happening any time soon


  • #26
    CerebralCortex
    Registered Users Posts: 3,809 ✭✭✭CerebralCortex


    The continued development of Dublin is essential to the country's economy because unfortunately it's the only real population center. There in lies the problem, it seems as though the Irish have a pathological resistance to living close to each other. Instead of neglecting Dublin to build up other cities we should simply concentrate on building other cities. I live in Limerick city(if you call it a city) I can tell you the center is empty, why?


  • #27
    Aard
    Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    There was an interesting video posted in Politics about "retrofitting" suburban communities. May be applicable to Dublin.

    Video: http://www.ted.com/talks/ellen_dunham_jones_retrofitting_suburbia.html
    Original thread: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055956771


  • #28
    BrianD
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,221 ✭✭✭BrianD


    The real problem is not that Dublin is too big but the Dublin-centric area is too big. Weak planning coupled with the property boom has meant that we now have a city that was low density in the first place surrounded by a larger even lower density sprawl. It is uneconomical to maintain and sustain this sprawl. The inhabitants of this sprawl of high expectations of utilities and services e.g. public transport that can never be delivered economically or in a sustainable fashion.

    What need to do is to define the city as a geographic area. Within zones of that area we need to allow high density developments and the services that go with them. The kind of suburban developments that were allowed in surrounding counties need to be banned.

    Only yesterday, while travelling by DART and looking at the "route map" it should how bad the mindset is when you have Athlone, Dundalk and Gorey appearing on the Dublin suburban rail map. It shows that if there is a mindset with IR - and the same applies to other utilities and services - that there is an objective to provide some sort of a suburban rail services to AThlone then it is no wonder that services within what should be the suburbs are suffering.

    Unfortunately, some hard decisions are going to have to be made to get population densities increased within a realistically sized Dublin city that will be of benefit to all. I would maintain that if this could be achieved then rural Ireland would also benefit as a result.


  • #29
    yermanoffthetv
    Registered Users Posts: 625 ✭✭✭yermanoffthetv


    ^^ Spot on Brian, hit the nail on the head there.


  • #30
    Godge
    Closed Accounts Posts: 21,727 ✭✭✭✭Godge


    BrianD wrote: »
    The real problem is not that Dublin is too big but the Dublin-centric area is too big. Weak planning coupled with the property boom has meant that we now have a city that was low density in the first place surrounded by a larger even lower density sprawl. It is uneconomical to maintain and sustain this sprawl. The inhabitants of this sprawl of high expectations of utilities and services e.g. public transport that can never be delivered economically or in a sustainable fashion.

    What need to do is to define the city as a geographic area. Within zones of that area we need to allow high density developments and the services that go with them. The kind of suburban developments that were allowed in surrounding counties need to be banned.

    Only yesterday, while travelling by DART and looking at the "route map" it should how bad the mindset is when you have Athlone, Dundalk and Gorey appearing on the Dublin suburban rail map. It shows that if there is a mindset with IR - and the same applies to other utilities and services - that there is an objective to provide some sort of a suburban rail services to AThlone then it is no wonder that services within what should be the suburbs are suffering.

    Unfortunately, some hard decisions are going to have to be made to get population densities increased within a realistically sized Dublin city that will be of benefit to all. I would maintain that if this could be achieved then rural Ireland would also benefit as a result.

    Dublin is too low density - agreed.

    The solution is to increase density. There are large derelict sites within the canals let alone inside the M50. Better public transport.

    The craziest thing is that we have not learned from Dublin's problems. Low density results in an increased cost of living and because of poor public trasnport a lower standard of living. When this is added to a rural planning system that promotes one-off housing we have a recipe for highest infrastructure cost in the world.

    We need to build more houses and apartments at high density on derelict sites within the M50 but we also need to stop building (or charge full extra cost for services to) one-off housing on boreens.


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  • #31
    Amazotheamazing
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭Amazotheamazing


    As usual in Ireland, the practical solutions will get lost behind the parochial solutions.

    There should be a counter balance to Dublin developed somewhere, be it Cork, Limerick or Galway, not to detract from Dublin to make Dublin a better place to live for people currently living there and allow the country build proper infrastructure.


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