Re: Re: Utopian visions of Ireland

I myself started a thread ‘My Dublin Architectural Wish-List’ of things I’d like to see built in the capital. In the country itself, these are a few of my ideas:

• A high-speed, high-capacity rail network linking each of the 10 most populous conurbations on this island with each other.
• Development of the docklands in Dublin, Galway, Cork, Limerick and Waterford into places of architectural excellence. Too long have concerns over the relationship of architectural proposals to existing architecture held up real progress. If new, tall and good developments are needed in these cities and they threaten existing architectural fabric, they should be sited in the dockland areas..
• Development of real and substantial public transport in Cork, Galway and Limerick and significant upgrades of Dublin public transport with things like more buses, more DART, greater frequencies and single ticketing.
• Re-establishment of retail planning regulations and the roll back of the scale of the IKEA propsal to <6000 sqm.
• Enforcement of standards of architectural excellence to ensure we get the best of the Northern Quarter/Arnotts build.
• Ensure that things like trees, flower-boxes, shrubs etc are maintained in residential areas as they can really make a place look fantastic.

I hope that’s the sort of response you want, Finite.