TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

Another important point of attention must be ‘governance’. The regional level is seen as critical
for any of the gateway centres outside the East corridor to develop ‘distinctiveness’ and strong
and clear spatial policies. The current administrative system of cities with their surrounding
county structure is completely inadequate. The future of the eight Gateway cities outside
Dublin could be very different if each of these cities represented the core of a regional body
with directly elected Regional Senators and Regional Mayors. The elected representatives at
county council level would obtain meaningful functions at local level rather than the role they
currently have which is often meaningless in reality because funds are directly determined by
central government. While the regions would be based on the existing boundaries of regional
authorities, the bodies could be renamed according to the name of the gateway city. This would
create a more urban and dynamic image. One could imagine an Ireland with the following
governance structure: National Federal, including European and all-Ireland axis (Dublin/Belfast),
Cork City Region, Limerick/Shannon City Region, Galway City Region, Waterford City Region,
Dundalk/Drogheda City Region, Sligo/Letterkenny/Derry City Region, Midlands City Region.
What does this mean for the ‘twice the size’ challenge? After all, this was based on the premise
that the gateway cities should prepare for much more significant population growth and move
away from incrementalist policies. The main lesson from the study appears to be that growth is
not always necessary and that growth is not always required for a town or city, to become
successful.
The preferred vision can be summarised as follows:
• The critical mass argument of Balanced Regional Development may need to be
reviewed.
• All spatial planning and infrastructure policies should be tested against the possible
development of a single urban centre along the Eastern seaboard.
• Gateway cities outside the East corridor should be encouraged to develop
‘distinctiveness’ instead of population growth. The ‘twice the size’ exercise of strategic
long-term visionary planning should take this distinctiveness as the starting point.
9 PREPARING IRELAND FOR POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE FUTURES
9.1 Policy Testing
The analysis of the scenarios shows that some underlying drivers and outcomes are common to
all scenarios. It is clear that some actions will help to reinforce outcomes that are generally
desirable while other actions will retard such developments. A set of desirable and undesirable
outcomes and reinforcers and retardants, presented in Table 6, can be used to test emerging
plans and policies by asking whether the intervention will reinforce or retard desirable
outcomes.
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