Re: Re: The Skehan/Sirr plan

gunter: daparting from the ‘ideal city’ mode (always a tempting, but in the end fascistic notion), surely any attempt at thinking of a ‘new’ urban model would be predicated on what is already there and. critically, on a ‘hierarchical’ (‘functional’) notion of city/town? That is, what does the town ‘do’? What is it ‘for’?
Adamstown is a suburb, but with a ‘local centre’ feel, focused on a railway station and a town square (like a small provincial continental town). Drogheda and even Navan are more historic sub-regional centres where you would expect a wider range of function and a wider range of facilities. The present downturn gives a chance for a breather and a rethink. Maybe with some of the frenetic heat out of the road, the Dublin region will be given a chance to consolidate and coalesce round ‘natural’ functional nodes (OK, I know this is very Christaller, but he wasn’t all wrong). There is even room in this model for the Poundbury-style, neo-Garden City form of development, on a smaller scale. (One is not advocating the Middle-England Hobbitland of HRH.)
The only form of development not suitable here would be the ‘one-off’ rural house, although historically there is a precedent in Ireland. (One-off is OK, thousands-off is a problem.) Things like the Co. Cork design guide for rural housing surely point the way forward here.
Anyway, this is a fascinating debate; let’s hope more join in.