TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

PART IV: The Future of the Gateways
This section presents the main results of the study for each gateway. In Part II of the report, the
global and national driving forces of change and the main issues and trends arising from them
were listed. Each of these drivers will affect the future of the gateways to a greater or lesser
extent, and will have different implications for some gateways than for others. However, it can
be assumed that the set of global and national drivers is common to each of the gateways.
Conversely, in this section, the focus is placed on each gateway’s unique drivers, but the most
important ones at the same time.
Similarly, the national scenarios, presented in Chapter 7, form a framework of reference for the
gateway scenarios. The gateway scenarios depict how a given town or city could develop within
a given national scenario, this is, in Ireland of “The Sow of Liberty”, “Wild Cats of Equality” or
“The Fragility of Mé Féin”.
For each gateway the following findings are presented:
ten most important driving forces of change;
five pivotal uncertainties;
a selection of ideas for the development of the preferred future; and
a set of three alternative scenarios.
The selection of ideas for the development of a preferred future was arrived at as a result of a
detailed analysis of the material generated during the futures workshops, from the strategic
interviews and the futures questionnaires. These ideas are not ultimate elements of the
preferred future vision, but rather proposals that have emerged from the project and, perhaps,
they can be used by the gateway stakeholders in creating their future strategies.
It is hoped that the material presented in this section, especially the scenarios, will be useful
for the gateways’ stakeholders in their planning and decision-making processes. A set of
questions that can help in future-proofing of policies and decisions against the alternative
futures described in the scenarios is listed below.
What are the strategic implications of a policy or decision?
How does a policy or a decision fit into each scenario?
What options are suggested?
Are there any particular vulnerabilities exposed?
Is the decision or strategy robust enough?
Does it seem to work in only one scenario and thus qualify as high risk?
How can the strategy or decision be adapted to make it more robust?
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