TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

functional urban regions include the Randstad in the Netherlands and the Rhine-Ruhr region in
Germany (GEMACA II, 2002). In other instances, the capital city of a number of countries has
dominated the country in all aspects and functions as a primate city: Paris and London are
prominent examples of urban primacy.
Another spatial trend in Europe has been the emergence of ‘World Cities’ such as London and
Paris, which increasingly operate within an interdependent network of other global centres of
commerce (Hall, 1998). Major cities have been gradually decoupling their own economies from
their host countries, functioning as ‘city states’.
The European Union currently has no direct competency in relation to spatial planning which is a
function of each of its member states. However, in 1999 the European Spatial Development
Perspective (ESDP) was launched, and is a key policy document outlining the objectives of a
sustainable and integrated system of land-use planning within the European Union. A prime
objective of the ESDP is for adjacent member states to work more closely to ensure that their
respective spatial policies and goals are complementary to each other and more closely aligned
(ESDP, 1999).
Ireland
In Ireland, as with Europe, there has been a longstanding tradition of a core area versus a
periphery. The core region comprises Dublin city and its hinterland, currently designated the
Greater Dublin Area. The population of the Greater Dublin Area was 1.66 million in 2006, which
accounts for 40 % of the population of the Republic of Ireland as a whole. Outside of the Greater
Dublin area, the urban hierarchy is relatively weak, particularly in the West and Northwest of
the country.
The dominance of Dublin, which functions as a primate city for Ireland, has been long
recognised by policy makers, and successive solutions have been sought to attempt to
counterbalance the city by channelling growth elsewhere. However, given the degree of the
primate nature of Dublin, these policies have met with limited success.
Emerging spatial relationships in Ireland are currently under scrutiny and include the following:
• the expanded Dublin Commuter Belt;
• the emerging Dublin-Belfast Economic Corridor; and
• the Atlantic Corridor.
The Dublin commuter belt, which includes those settlements that act as dormitory towns for
Dublin city, has grown significantly in extent and population over recent years, particularly
since the mid-1990s. A key driver of this growth has been the relative under-supply of affordable
housing in Dublin which has not matched demand. This demand for housing, in turn, was
deflected into the commuter belt which offered more affordable accommodation (Williams and
Shiels, 2002). The growth of the Dublin Commuter belt has been considered to be problematic
because of the pressure on existing transport infrastructure caused by sprawling development in
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