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.
johnmcdnl wrote: » ireland is bigger than Dublin yano
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
Tragedy wrote: » There's a lot less people in Cavan and Meath than in Dublin.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
murphaph wrote: » Why do so many people from rural Ireland think they should be excempt from a global trend.
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.
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?
Firstly, I still don't quite see how 40% of the country living withing 50 miles of Dublin is a real problem.
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.
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.
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.
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: It has an international airport that is popular with the US, offering customs clearance; It is in the centre of the Galway-Limerick-Cork corridor, which is the only real part of the country to rival Greater Dublin; It has good connections to Dublin, i.e. the M7.
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.
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.
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.
