Irish Times calls for "10 new Ballymuns"

Dublin needs housing.

Public housing works fine when it isn't saturated with scum.

Well we do need a setting and backdrop for the next generation of gritty Roddy Doyle/Adam and Paul type films.

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

One big tower would be easier to police

By Judge Dredd?

Well, the article seems confused. On the one hand, it says it's looking for 5 to 10 new Ballymuns, but then describes well-serviced, centrally located hi-rise living that's the opposite of what Ballymun was.

I once had the pleasure of attending a briefing session on Ballymun for a previous job - what we were told reflects what tatranska said. Poor location and disinterest from the powers-that-be undermined the whole effort. I am no expert on the area but it seems like Ballymun-style projects require a lot of management and follow-through on planning or else they spiral downwards.

According to the presenter, Ballymun started off extrememly well and was innovative. The flats were laid out to have the same floorspace as a standard house (I think some were three bed and some were two bed), and had dual aspect, so there would be sunlight in the flats all hours of the day. It copied best-practise of the day. There was a long waiting list to get into the area.

But a lot of political infighting (Dublin City Corporation wasn't happy with how, why and where it was built) meant that the provision of important local services we're either delayed or abandoned. I have vague recollections of DCC refusing street lights for years and they were supposed to build and manage local amenities, like community centres, shopping centres and the like, but only made a half-hearted effort after it was all built. They also refused to do the basic maintenance they were supposed to do, creating long waiting lists for even the most basic repairs. People suffered while different levels of government argued.

Bad luck, economic downturn and poor procurement led to other problems. (The lifts, for example, were originally provided by a Spanish company that either went bankrupt or else interpreted their obligations to provide working lifts entirely differently. This set up years of problems.).

The area was designed so parents could supervise children's play areas from the flats which worked well to a point, but 'blind spots' became havens for anti-social behaviour as children aged and fell into bad habits.

One of the biggest detriments to the social fabric, we were told, was the launch of government initiatives for house purchase. Expansion in other areas of the housing stock meant that the sort of people who had been leading community groups and working out the problems with the project on the ground took the opportunity to purchase their own houses elsewhere. (They couldn't purchase their flats.)

This removed the main groups of ordinary working people stopping the unfettered proliferation of drugs and anti-social behaviour. (edit: I know there were still a lot of ordinary working people left)

One of the things that really signified how little DCC was interested in fixing the problems out there was when DCC decided to house care in the community and assorted vulnerable persons in vacant units. These vulnerable persons were never realistically going to become community leaders and just became 'victims' of the whole endeavour. The person giving the talk had been involved in the 'decommissioning' of the flats and spoke of traumatic scenes when they were helping some tenants move that hadn't been outside their home sometimes for more than a decade.

It doesn't excuse the 'bad element' from being the 'bad element' - it just means that the Ballymun model requires a lot of management to control the bad element. (And again.... I know there were a lot of ordinary, decent people in Ballymun)

I'm not sure low-density sprawl is necessarily the answer either - look at some areas of Tallaght (disclaimer: I currently rent in Tallaght and I'm not slating the whole area). Take the 56A and pass by Jobstown or any of the other extremely disadvantaged areas - stunning scenery and great houses - you can see the good intentions of the original planners - but lots of anti-social behaviour. Houses that they can't give away in Sundale would be €300k anywhere else.

Social planning has been sidelined in the past just to throw up housing units (be they towerblocks or semi-Ds) or in the wake of political infighting. However, it seems that social housing just won't work unless community and commercial activity are also provided for.

*Just want to add, I realise there were a lot of people in Ballymun not engaged in anti-social behaviour... apologies if my post focuses on the negative anti-social aspects, but that's what the thread is about.