Re: Re: Urban Sprawl destorying economy
That a country of 5 million people (inc. the North) (basically the size of South London) cannot plan its physical environment (which we all claim as so precious) in a sustainable fashion is a sorry indictment of politicians, local councillors, voters, planners, money grabbing gombeen men and the apathetic public at large. Contrary to the above I don’t think that the Irish have any real feel for nor commitment to a sustainable urban and rural future.
Good point, needs to be said more often I feel. These ideas are good, but often forgotten at crucial times, when big decisions are being made with regard to future planning. I need to constant repeat and repeat, the most basic steps in regard to designing good architecture to myself, every day – you think that they stick, but really they need to be refreshed all of the time – so I don’t expect many planners remember the basics either, without a constant refreshing on regular basis. Very true, but unfortunately rarely observed, in either architecture or in planning.
I have friends they have bought starter houses out in Kildare and to a certain extent I can sympathise given the cost in Dublin. But what are young working childless couples doing in a three bed houses with front and back gardens (they never use or concrete over) which they basically occupy from 7pm to 7am. A complete waste of space. The demographic of Ireland is such that two parent three odd child families are very very much in the minority yet we keep building and buying such inflexible space.
Again, what I like a lot about your post, and often when guys like Frank McDonald from the Times talks on radio etc, is you are just issuing very obvious (what should be obvious) statements or guides to proper approachs to design. You aren’t saying much out of the ordinary – but sometimes, I guess in the attempt to create stuff which is ‘extraordinary’ (trumpets and big drums) we can just forget the ordinary stuff, which is far, far better for design and planning in general. And, you know, if you take a lot of the quoted points, in this post, on board at all – we here in Ireland could be contributing to problems in the future – problems this country is going to have to deal with at some stage or other.
Brian O’ Hanlon.
