Dublin’s sprawl threatens to choke the nation
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irish Independent
Dublin’s sprawl threatens to choke the nation
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THE long-established tendency for Dublin, and the smaller Irish cities, to sprawl into their hinterlands, with both population and employment spreading through adjoining regions, has been accompanied through the recent economic boom by a sharp rise in car ownership and an increasing reliance on the private car for passenger transport.
These trends have persisted despite regular public policy statements deploring sprawl, and espousing increased density and a switch to public transport. There has been a pronounced disconnection for at least two decades between the policy rhetoric and the reality of urban development patterns.
Based on a 21-year perspective compiled by the CSO on what has been happening to commuting patterns in Ireland we can conclude.
* The share of car journeys in Irish commuting trips has been rising rapidly.
* Trip length has also risen sharply.
* Public transport’s share is declining.
The product of these three developments has been a huge increase in the incidence of car-dependent, longer-distance commuting, a phenomenon present throughout the country but most pronounced in the Eastern region around Dublin.
That region has also seen an upgrading of the national inter-urban road system which has, no doubt unintentionally, facilitated the long-distance car commuter.
In the period 1981-2002 The percentage based at home has declined, as have those using bicycle, public transport or walking to work. The percentage driving, or travelling as car passengers, has risen from 44pc to 62pc over the period. The figures for school and college students’ commuting preferences show similar trends. Cycling to school has virtually ceased, down from 13pc to 3.5pc for the 13 to 18 year-old group, while the car mode has risen from 8pc to 29pc. In many rural counties, over 50pc of home-to-work commuters were traveling more than 10 miles each way by 2002, and in some areas as much as one-third were traveling 15 miles or more. Similar trends are evident in the Census data for school and college students.
While the population of the State rose by almost 14pc over the 21-year period covered, there were very great variations. The population of Dublin city actually fell, and the city area now contains just 12.7pc of the State’s total, versus 15.8pc back in 1981. This has been one element in a classic doughnut re-distribution of population in the East of Ireland, with very rapid growth in the outer suburbs of Dublin and in the adjoining counties. The populations of Connacht, and of the three Ulster counties in the Republic, have both risen over the period, contrary perhaps to some widespread perceptions.
But the really radical redistribution of population in these numbers has been within the province of Leinster.
However, an inevitable consequence of the population weakness in Dublin is that investments in facilities such as LUAS are taking place in parts of the Greater Dublin Area with static or declining population. In short sprawl hurts the public transport market.
The Government’s planned decentralisations are controversial, particularly with civil and public service trades unions but also with critics who have questioned the consistency of the scheme with the National Spatial Strategy.
On car dependence, since Dublin has in absolute terms one of the lowest car ownership rates in the country, it can be stated with a high degree of certainty that any decentralisation policy will increase the national car ownership level. It will also increase average car usage, for the same reason.
Since all 25 counties outside Dublin have been included, the Leinster counties in the high growth belt are recipients of public service jobs.
Towns such as Athy, Newbridge, Drogheda, Navan, Mullingar, Edenderry and Portlaoise are already commuter towns for Dublin, and have had very rapid increases in population. They are nonetheless included on the list of recipient towns for decentralised Government offices. The pattern of decentralisation which is planned bears no discernible relationship to the alleviation of demographic weak spots, nor does it redirect jobs in a manner which will reduce car dependence.
It is time to accept that Dublin, unfortunately, now resembles a US sunbelt city, irreversibly car dependent, and that the sprawl which has already occurred severely limits the potential of rail-based public transport solutions. There is nothing to be said for compounding the errors in land-use policy by proceeding as if they had not happened.
Colm McCarthy, DKM Economic Consultants. This is an edited version of an article published in the Irish Banking Review. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland on 27th. February 2004, and at the Urban Institute, University College Dublin on April 26th. 2004. The author would like to thank Jacinta McDonnell for assistance and comments.
Colm McCarthy
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What’s your personal view on this anto?
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never trust a consultant for the banks, or special interest groups. i suspect the figures here are misleading, while Dublin City ( the central area) has lost population in the last 21 years, it probably has seen some reverses of that in the last 5 – 10. Most of the decline, then, happening in the previous eras of neglect.
We don’t have to be an American type city. We can chose not to be, and clearly most general opinion has moved against sprawl. It is not as if the poeple buying houses in the suburbs have an affinity to travelling 2 hours each day. They would prefer less sprawl and cheaper houses closer to the centre, or even appartments.
And Dublin is not an American type city anyway. We socialise, and shop ( often), in the centre. They do not.
The city is not “irreversibly car dependent”, it has gotten so bad that there is apolitical and general will to change things now.
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True, most people now try to avoid the city centre, for shopping at least – but as asdasd says, the city population has increased substantially in the past 5-7 years, which ought to be recognised – and it’s continuing.
Just on the issue of cycling, one astonishing figure I heard recently, that is confirmed by the Dublin Cycling Campaign (think that’s what they’re called) is that more girls drive to school in this country than cycle! The female drivers amongst the two senior years in school actually surpass all the female cyclists in all the other years!
Now you can’t get more American than that! -
Cycling in Dublin is just not pleasant any more because the roads are saturated with traffic all day long. Many who would cycle don’t because of the traffic volume. And not because it’s too dangerous, but because of the dirt, noise, fumes and general irritation of cycling in chronic traffic. A letter in the paper recently about commuting by bike in Dublin described the cyclist as arriving at his destination a “sweating, frustrated mess”.
Cycle lane networks are fine, but if the lanes are right beside the traffic, then it doesn’t make much difference to these problems, with the end result that cycling figures do not increase and people stay in their cars.
What is needed in Dublin is proper, separated cycle lane networks like in Amsterdam and Cophenhagen. Then the cycling figures would shoot up. In those cities men and women breeze around on bikes in office clothes, barely breaking a sweat.
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Originally posted by asdasd
never trust a consultant for the banks, or special interest groups. i suspect the figures here are misleading, while Dublin City ( the central area) has lost population in the last 21 years, it probably has seen some reverses of that in the last 5 – 10. Most of the decline, then, happening in the previous eras of neglect.The city is not “irreversibly car dependent”, it has gotten so bad that there is apolitical and general will to change things now.
Colm McCarthy is one of the best readers of Urban Economic trends in the land.
His consensus is largely based on the 2002 paper by DITs Shiels and Williams that tracked the growth of the ‘Outer Leinster Commuter Belt’
Another analysis by James Nix of An Taisce and the National Institute of Transport and Logistics has looked at the development of the Sandyford phenonenum of clustering high density offices at a suburban location and radiating sprawling low density housing estates around them.
All of this is virtually car dependent as it is served by only one light rail route that goes only into the City Centre but doesn’t connect with any other transport network.
To make matters worse Europes largest shopping centre will soon open in Dundrum and one of Europes biggest retail warehousing parks will have access directly onto the Carrickmines M50 junction.
To move away from this trend Nix concluded that 40% of the semi redundant institutional lands would need to be developed in a high density fashion thus providing 38,000 housing units close to sustainable public transport.
When I read McCarthy’s article it sounded suspiciously like Nix’s which in turn was an updated version of Shiels and Williams
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Colm McCarthy is one of the best readers of Urban Economic trends in the land.
You’re trying to impress me with credentialism. That never works. I am now watching a BCC2 programme about the vandalism of sixties architecture by people who were well credentialed indeed.
Anyway, I still say he was being misleading in saying the city lost people in the last 21 years, without clarifying ( at least in the Independent report) that it had increased sunstantially in the last 7 years, or so.
I suppose we are all on the same side here, and oppose an “irreversible” car dependant city; I also believe that that such opposition is becoming more or less the popular view, which is much better than only having the bien pensant realise that we cannot go on like this.
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Originally posted by asdasd
You’re trying to impress me with credentialism. That never works. I am now watching a BCC2 programme about the vandalism of sixties architecture by people who were well credentialed indeed.
Anyway, I still say he was being misleading in saying the city lost people in the last 21 years, without clarifying ( at least in the Independent report) that it had increased sunstantially in the last 7 years, or so.
I suppose we are all on the same side here, and oppose an “irreversible” car dependant city; I also believe that that such opposition is becoming more or less the popular view, which is much better than only having the bien pensant realise that we cannot go on like this.
I am quite familiar with McCarthy’s media appearances, and we are on the same side, he is also on the same side in my opinion.
He gets called in by RTE to do some of the Primetime specials on housing affordability and settlement dynamics. He has never disagreed with the Spatial planning school of thought and has never suggested that Ireland should bungalow out the less developed areas as a solution.
He has consistently argued against the growth of the Outer Leinster commuter belt which basically didn’t exist 10 years ago and I think that his point was if departments are decentralised to places such as Portlaoise and Trim then it is irreversable.
If 40% if semi-redundant institutional lands in the Dublin City Council area were developed for medium/high density housing it would provide 38,000 homes, he is on record as saying that the 40% to be developed should be done so along public transport corridors.
It is useful to have a private sector researcher who has come to such conclusions, it provides additional perspectives in addition to the existing NGO’s and college research fellows coming to similar conclusions.
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The answer is simple. As one who has essentially been forced out of my home town and having an approx 100 mile round commute each day. We need supplies of large (1,100 sq ft+) apartments that are (1) family friendly (2) reasonably priced (3) non – investor filled. In this was living communities could be built within the city.
The majority of people now in the outer suburbs are there for economic rather than quality of life reasons (in what way is a 3 hour round trip quality?). If you want something other than a shoebox at a reasonable price you have to commute long distance.
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this is a national problem as well as a dublin one. i have seen for years on the way up to dublin, villages getting swamped by large housing estates. and now in galway. the whole place is gone daft.
This was the price of progress at the time i suppose but now that we are more confident in ourselves we should look at this problem exactly as is recommended. to say we don’t have a history of apartment living, while true, doesn’t mean that if it’s cheap enough a lot of us wouldn’t.
i have been listening to this argument for years though. everyone saying urban sprawl is terrible. it is but it’s not going to change by talk. developers need a reason to change from the status quo and move forward. otherwise we are still going to be having this discussion in 20 years time. meanwhile our cities become these monsters with, as we talked about before devin, the centres will have students and others in them and will eventually fall into some ruin.the businesses will move out of the centres and into these american style malls.while this is all very basic urban design and planning issues.
at least i must say that ye are trying to do something about that in the capital. (regeneration of the docks etc where at least there are apartments going into the centre of the city, even with all it’s various faults, it still is a step in the right direction) but large scale regeneration is needed or we will be forced into a situatioin where there just isn’t the reasons to but an old building and either flatten and start again .:Dor re-do and re-use as it’s easier to get planning for a few hundred houses out in the sticks. -
I think everybody is being pessimistic.
Unlike the once off country housing issue, where there is a clear ideological divide between elite thinking and mass thinking; there is no such divide, now, with regards to Dublin sprawl.
Nobody defends Dublin sprawl, and nobody wants the city to be twice it’s present footprint in 20 years, least of all the people living on the edge of town, like Rory W.
Ireland often succeeds in producing the best from the worst; we had to replace an horrible operator run phone system in the late seventies with the best digital system in Europe at the time. This transition won’t be as simple, but if the DTO plans work out, and DCC’s plans for the regeneration of the centre we will have a very liveable city within 20 years. If we could accelerate that, lets do it too.
Diaspora said
If 40% if semi-redundant institutional lands in the Dublin City Council area were developed for medium/high density housing it would provide 38,000 homes, he is on record as saying that the 40% to be developed should be done so along public transport corridors.
Well, yes. Lets do that. But are you sure the figures aren’t higher? I remember reading somewhere that brown field development in Dublin could release enough land for 300,000 houses.
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These people are rabid anti-rail transport and always have been. The come from the Sean Barret/Robert Moses end of the spectrum. I love the suggestion that LUAS is somehow responsible for the population decline in central Dublin. Amazing…
BTW the Dublin Metro Full Report by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport is well worth a read in order to see how bus-based systems are not the answer to the city’s sprawl.
look under “P11 Update”
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Originally posted by asdasd
I remember reading somewhere that brown field development in Dublin could release enough land for 300,000 houses.Included in the 300,000 homes figure would be industrial lands in places like the East Wall/ South Docklands etc.
It is definitely the way to go, on the train yesterday looking at Broombridge Station it occured to me that a lot of the smaller scale industrialestates built in the 1960/70’s would be ideal for medium density residential development.
Buildings that have outlived their specification and often are unlettable in their present use are occupying some of the most strategic sites at suburban locations.
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On paper Dublin sprawls for quite a bit. However, my view on this was changed when flying off from Dublin airport a month ago. As you know, the airport is no more than 7 miles from the city centre, but if you look out the window as soon as the plane starts to make it’s accent all you can see are fields – as far as the eye can see.
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Originally posted by deza
On paper Dublin sprawls for quite a bit. However, my view on this was changed when flying off from Dublin airport a month ago. As you know, the airport is no more than 7 miles from the city centre, but if you look out the window as soon as the plane starts to make it’s accent all you can see are fields – as far as the eye can see.The area around the Airport is probably the least developed area relative to its distance from the City Centre.
Best International planning practice is to limit non-airport related development for 2-5kms around Airports for three reasons
1> Safety
2> Environmental Health ie noise and air pollution
3> To reserve the land for airport related uses.If there was a planning free for all around the airport it would simply become a sprawling retail warehouse park.
The Fingal South Fringe Study 2002 deals with the rationale.
What has also hampered North County Dublin is the lack of rail services, it simply isn’t possible to develop many more car dependent homes in this area. To get from the CC to Swords in the evening rush hour takes about 75-90 minutes on the Bus or about the time it takes a train to get to Tullamore.
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I understand that. It’s just that I can’t see where this sprawl is. I know Dublin is a fairly big city in relative terms.
If you compare it with UK cities such as Liverpool, Sheffield and Leeds for instance it’s bigger. It’s about twice the size of Belfast and Edinburgh and similar in size to Glasgow. Whenever, I’ve been over I’ve felt the buzz of something big. However, a few of us decided to go to Kilkenny and got the train from Euston. After 5 minutes on the train, we were surrounded by fields. It just surprised me especially when you compare it the bustling feel in the city.
Does this sprawl perhaps come in “pockets” of urbanisation?
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It does come in pockets as you say and it also comes in lines, one of the major problems here is ribbon development. Where you entered fields on the Southern rail line is almost like a green lung for Dublin.
Immediately to the North is an area called Lucan that has 1000’s of typical 3 bed semi-detatched houses at a density of 16 or less to the acre. To the South is Tallaght which again has 1000’s of low density houses.
The real problems in Dublin are not towards the Airport or along the southern rail line but radiate from major roads. Land prices were very cheap in Dublin until recently which made selling low spec low density housing very profitable.
Now land prices are high at least half the settlement is occuring 30-120 kms away from Central Dublin in the County towns of the adjoining counties. It is leading to a similar phenonenum experienced in the UK in the late 1980’s
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Cheers Diaspoa. Your explanation certainly makes a lot of sense. Perhaps building up and creating affordable housing is the only way to halt this sprawl. Logically there are only 2 options. You build up or you build out.
I think building up is probably the only option to stop Dublin spreading out as far as Galway!
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All credit to The City Council and Harcourt developments this one looks like a step in the right direction
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I read somewhere it was but I could be wrong, it has been big enough for many of the tenants in the neighbouring Nutgrove Centre not to renew their leases and move into the new centre, the tenant list from the snippits I’ve seen is impressive. From what I’ve heard the views from the top floor are outstanding with views from Bray to Howth
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Originally posted by d_d_dallas
I heard something along the lines of five floors underground…?Of Parking?
I have only seen whats in the Commercial property supplements so I can’t be sure, I was talking to someone who visited the site 2 weeks ago and she was very impressed by the views she had seen. I also very much doubt that fire officer would grant five floors of underground retail space.
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