TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

The most profound shift that will occur in the near future will be the growing recognition that
Ireland has become an urban society. Ireland has long been recognised as one of Europe’s most
rural cultures due the lack of either an underlying Roman or Feudal urban tradition. This shift is
occurring very rapidly, and attitudes and expectations are only slowly adapting to this new
reality.
One of the deepest consequences of the urbanisation of a society is the emergence and
acknowledgement of the duty of care of the city to sustain the wellbeing of its inhabitants.
Whereas rural communities can survive in a laissez faire regime, the urban citizen is entirely
dependent on the city to supply and sustain their conditions of life, potential and prosperity.
Deliberately fostering, providing and sustaining the conditions for a human being to live an
entire lifetime is a huge challenge, doing so in such a way that facilitates the attainment of the
fullest potential for the widest range of society is especially daunting.
The evocation of a city region that meets the cultural, economic, social and physical needs of
the very young, the very old and everyone in between – from an increasingly multi-cultural
society – will be a huge and exciting challenge. The means of meeting the challenge will surprise
many. Elements of the city like parks, cultural activity, community identity and pedestrian
convenience will very rapidly move from the role of luxuries to necessities. Many existing
institutions, policy makers and professionals who find these challenges difficult to acknowledge
or accept are likely to have their authority challenged or diminished. There will be territorial
turmoil and turf wars.
Politics are changed by demographics and values. Politics changes policies. Urban politics will
create urban policies. Experience of mature urban politics elsewhere indicates that they are
dominated by issues such as local finances for the provision, maintenance and renewal of urban
facilities as well as the maintenance of security, equity and amenities. This kind of urban
politics places a very high emphasis on the effectiveness and technical competence in planning
and managing complex systems. Immature city regions are led by infrastructure. In mature and
successful urban areas, proactive visions about quality, identity and competitiveness set an
agenda which is served by infrastructure not visa-versa. This inversion of priorities can lead to
the costly re-evaluation of earlier decisions. With foresight, Ireland’s Eastern city region may be
able to anticipate and avoid this problem.
Above all else, the deliberate creation of a new city region carries with it the need for beauty
as a duty of care. The quality of urban spaces – in denser urban centres and less dense
residential areas alike – move from being a luxury to a necessity as cities increase in scale. The
residents of larger settlements are completely dependent on the quality of the design and the
delivery of urban spaces for their emotional and physical well-being. This is recognised in the
spatial planning of larger urban areas and lies at the heart of the challenge of sustaining
Ireland’s emerging city region.
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