TWICE THE SIZE - DIT Update - Dublin Institute of Technology

15. The intensification of agriculture and the removal of farm subsidies will accelerate
the decline of agricultural populations removing more and more marginal lands from
traditional farming so that the unfarmed countryside is left as a vacuum to be filled
by tourism, rural settlement, ecological and heritage designation, resource
protection and leisure pursuits.
16. Around the world there is a movement towards a form of ‘new urbanism’ which
seeks to develop neighbourhoods, towns and cities that are economically sound,
environmentally responsible and socially supportive of community liveability. The
first initiatives towards creating such positive, attractive new models and visions for
urban development are emerging in Ireland with projects like Adamstown –- with
more surely to come.
17. The advent of sustainability impact assessment [SIA] provides a mechanism to
ensure that all major policy proposals include an evaluation and report on the
economic social and environmental impacts of the project or measure, along with a
range of options.
18. The organisational and administrative structure for effective spatial planning and
efficient environmental resource management relies upon many local authorities
that are not only too big to solve the little problems at local level and too small to
solve the big ones at the regional scale, but also lack the managerial,
communication and technical skills needed to make environmental planning work.
19. On the basis of existing patterns of economic growth and urban settlement, taken
together with certain inherent natural features, a picture emerged during the study
of divergent futures unfolding for two different parts of Ireland which respectively
will require an increasingly distinctive and dissimilar array of policies and
implementation measure. The North, West, and South-West are likely to more and
more be seen as the focus for extensive, low-intensity, resource utilisation and
protection. Cultural, educational, residential and amenity values will become the
principal drivers. The East, Midlands and South-East will become organised around
an increasingly intensified urban corridor between Belfast, Dublin and the South
East. In this area, there will be growing capital investment, employment and
intensive land-use.
Wild Cards
Some potential ‘wild cards’ are:
Major disruption in global energy supplies.
Massive environmental disaster leading to extensive and long-term pollution.
Ice caps break up – oceans rise 20 feet.
The Atlantic ‘conveyor’ convection current stops.
Bee populations collapse worldwide.
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