A Nation at War with its Capital City?

I saw this, and thought of this thread.

A Cork County Councillor has described plans for the extension of Cork city’s boundary as ‘being akin to Napoleon’s move on Russia’.

There have been similar issues in Limerick and Waterford, where the city boundaries are out of line with current realities, never mind future planning.

I don’t know if the specifics of the new boundary proposal hold up to scrutiny in every detail. But someone depicting this kind of thing as an invasion is pretty much saying ‘I vigorously support the idea that all development should be centred on Dublin’.

@vkid wrote:

Isnt it wonderful what dublin has given us all! We culchies should be so much more grateful than we are!:rolleyes: 😀

In fairness, the poster was moved to make this remark in response to the ‘Dubs are all gurriers’ type rhetoric of an earlier post. I think the point we’re all trying to get at is the way these superficial Dublin/culchie stereotypes distract from meaningful issues. In that context, your response looks a little silly.

I don’t think gratitude is relevant to this discussion. What is relevant is how Ireland’s economy depends heavily on Dublin as a location, and how there is no coherent policy response to that reality.

In fairness, indeed. This discussion has not been about architecture or about planning – it has been a simplistic attempt to play one concept of what Ireland is off against another concept of what Ireland is. It is a debate that is as old as the hills and has certainly been trotted out in various forms since the very concept of the Pale was first derived (the Pale itself being based upon the notion of a cultural, linguistic and political division between Dublin and the rest of the land). Indeed, it was the first colonial attempt to partition the country and from what I can see it has, in the long term, been as successful as the later partitioning of the north. Wjat is being played out here in Archiseek is a primitive revision of some of the more sophisticated arguments presented by esteemed colonialists such as Sir Edmund Spenser who did little more than attempt to demonize the rural Irish as barbaric heathens when compared to the civilized British-influence pervading the east coast. In short, its time to move away from such debates that truly do not add much to the discussion or architecture or planning, but just provoke old colonial debates, prejudices and stereotypes. Instead of casting all of that crap out again, some of the people who have contributed to this debate would be better taking their noses out of the local FF and FG gazettes and out of the Irish Times and get their noses into books on understanding stereotypes and on understanding and appreciating the plurality of discourses within society, Maybe then they could move on to an enlightened discussion of architecture, rather than a ridiculous and simplistic vision of rural Ireland vs Dublin (for Christ sake – its a tiny island with four million people who are all basically related to each other through centuries or inter-marriage – just get real).

Well at least Napeolian was a fan of excellent urban planning!
See: Paris

it’s nothing to do with sympathy… it’s not needed as the east and north of the city are still under-developed. there wanted extension is out the east of the city where it is most concentrated along the dublin road. if it is needed in other cities then why isn’t it done? and if it is done will there be a proper plan involving hub centres with amenities and various facilities rather than 20,000 semi d’s and 1 shop and no pub, playing areas and other essential in creating a social and personal communities instead of souless estate after estate like the ones shown in graham’s thread. do we really want our society and future to go down that route or can we stand up and be counted. not enough is said on this subject. a lot of bluster is said on one off and that we should all live in estates but if this is what is on offer is it really viable? would you want to move into an area lke that and raise your family, or like so many, choose the alternative for around about similiar prices? there is a physe that we as a society have to get or mind around..that we as a people like to have a it of space. if our estatres were better designed with more usable open space would we have as many one off’s? will we ever favour apartment living? will our cities be populated by our every incresing ‘new irish’ ? there is a steady market as they are used to apartment living.

One thing I notice about many of the threads is that negative criticism abounds aplenty, but constructive alternatives are rarely proposed. Lets take the Galwy-Oranmore as a concrete example as it is a neat microcosm of a broader situation in the Greater Dublin, Cork and Limerick areas. What can be done to stop the current situation? What alternatives would people propose to the development of the western suburbs of Galway. More positive constructivism would be welcome in the approach to such problems. Sadly realistic suggestions are usually slow in coming and few in number.

vkid – i agree that there has been an awful lot of shite gone up in the last few years. hopefully this will be addressed. there are some nice schemes coming on line soon i hope.
and politics! yes and pure laziness on behalf of developers, architects ( yes there is an awful lot of shite/lazy architects and techs , engineers etc who get to design these things ) and people in general. not to make a political statement or anything but if there is corruption then vote them out…. i also think a directly elected mayor is a good idea…

The Cork City boundary extension looks a bit extreme, all it seems to be doing is annexing countryside with a few small villages dotted around!.. Has this any chance of going ahead? or are the City Council simply testing the water by demanding such a large extension in the hope that they will at least get something of an extension?..

http://www.corkcity.ie/news/pdf/Borough_Boundary_Map_081106.pdf

To be honest the Limerick City boundary is without doubt the biggest shambles of all! At least with Cork and Galway the vast majority of the city is actually within the city boundary, this is definately not the case in Limerick where at this stage less than half of the city is within the boundary, areas such as raheen,dooradoyle, castletroy/monaleen which are clearly natural suburbs of the city are all run by Limerick County Council. The worst thing is that the level of co-operation between the authorities is basically ZERO! An example of this occured this year when the county council included a bus lane in their plans for the improvement of st nessans road in Dooradoyle, however it only runs for around a mile, stopping dead in its tracks at the city boundary!

Over the last few years Limerick co co has also given the go-ahead for a number of large retail/commercial developments on the outskirts of the city, a retail masterplan for the Limerick city area was drawn up a couple of years by the 3 LA’s surrounding the city, however its clear Limerick County Council dont have much interest in sticking to it!

Limerick co co have always been blinded by rates and always seem to let this get in the way of proper planning. They dont care about the problems that their incompetence causes as long as the money continues to roll in! Theres no doubt that a boundary extension is urgently needed but the government has been fudging the issue for years now and its obvious that Dick Roche hasnt got the balls to make a decision! Willie o Dea dosent want to upset anyone either, pretty shameful stuff really!:mad: