Re: Re: Environment minister removes cap on superstores like IKEA

@shaun wrote:

This is great news, at last an IKEA store in Dublin, it’s going to regenerate Ballymun too.

How does it regenerate an area to site a retail warehouse there? It certainly provides employment but will the jobs will go to disadvantaged locals when educated Eastern European workers can be had for the same money? It also creates a huge amount of traffic.

It doesn’t exactly contribute to the aesthetics of an urban area to drop a humungous yellow box surrounded by acres of car parks.

As IKEA has a more efficient business model than smaller furniture shops, you would expect the result to be an overall reduction in employment in the sector. IKEA is getting to leverage the billions spent on the port tunnel and M50 upgrade without having to worry about the external costs generated by the increased traffic. It’s not their job to think about the greater good to society, that’s for Dick Roche to do when he considers the results of different land use policies.

Still, I’ll be shopping there in my car, regenerating Ballymun by driving through it.

Check out North London IKEA from the air – note the vast proportion of land taken up with roads and car parking and how inhospitable this area would be to anyone who can’t drive a car such as the young, old, poor or disabled.