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Better than no planning. I live in a part of Dublin (Ireland) that was rapidly developed back in the 1950s to house families that were being rehomed from conde

Better than no planning. I live in a part of Dublin (Ireland) that was rapidly developed back in the 1950s to house families that were being rehomed from condemned tenement buildings in the city. The design came from "garden cities", a design from England in the early 1900s. It wasn't very "organic". Entire housing estates were built. These were modest family homes with gardens, and the estates included ample green spaces. Roads still cope well enough with today's traffic. At several places within 10 minutes walk from my house, there are purpose-built shop-front buildings that housed butchers, grocers, maybe even a pub. This was the high watermark of planned development in Dublin. These houses fetch 450k today, and while building regulations were atrocious back then, I km wouldn't trade my old house for anything that's been built since the 2000s at double the asking price. Sincere those good old days, the government and local councils have basically stopped building entirely and leave it up to private building contractors to hoard land, wait for property prices to hit a profitable price and then apply for permission to build multi-story one-bedroom apartments with minimal parking or greenspace, and no thought given to other amenities whatsoever. Because "We have a housing crisis!!" permission is usually granted. There is a chasm between the Truman Show and a vertical hellhole. If I had to choose, I'd live in the Truman Show.

dkdbejwi383 5y ago
It's pretty much the same story in the UK. Early c20th slum clearances, followed by well planned council estates built around a community, later (late 60s or 70s) the estates started to fall out of favour with tower blocks taking their place, which was a disaster and led to the justification for the private development free-for-all that we've had to put up with since the 80s which has resulted in terrible American-style, car-dependent suburbs filled with poorly built and poorly designed houses with no services within walking distance.
andrepd 5y ago
Same thing in the UK, council housing was high-quality and affordable for new families. Blame Thatcher for selling off council housing (amid her many disastrous policies). It's amazing how many problems in the UK and the US today can be traced back to Thatcher and Reagan respectively.
- raffraffraff 5y ago
  And our gombeen men followed them
frabbit 5y ago
The Irish political/building establishment thrives on crisis and desparation: it's a sort of small time disaster capitalism in which the electorate continually collude with their betters in order to further their immiseration. Seeing the greenspaces of my childhood filled-in with shoddy-looking, expensive housing was shocking. Fingal County Council planning department seem to be giving the go-ahead to build any and every piece of rubbish using the excuse of "housing crisis" that you mention. I just returned from visiting Dublin (mainly the Northside) after several years away and was irritated by: ridiculous levels of private vehicle usage; broken in-carriage electronic stop announcements on the DART (light electric rail); difficulty in planning trips connecting dublin bus/iarnrod eireann/dart; bus stops without proper shelters; drivers parking on the pavement(sidewalk); lack of courtesy from drivers at non-signalized intersection. On a positive note I will say that all (especially Dublin Bus drivers) personnel interacted with on an individual level were wonderful.

dkdbejwi383 5y ago

It's pretty much the same story in the UK. Early c20th slum clearances, followed by well planned council estates built around a community, later (late 60s or 70s) the estates started to fall out of favour with tower blocks taking their place, which was a disaster and led to the justification for the private development free-for-all that we've had to put up with since the 80s which has resulted in terrible American-style, car-dependent suburbs filled with poorly built and poorly designed houses with no services within walking distance.

andrepd 5y ago

Same thing in the UK, council housing was high-quality and affordable for new families. Blame Thatcher for selling off council housing (amid her many disastrous policies). It's amazing how many problems in the UK and the US today can be traced back to Thatcher and Reagan respectively.

raffraffraff 5y ago
And our gombeen men followed them

frabbit 5y ago

The Irish political/building establishment thrives on crisis and desparation: it's a sort of small time disaster capitalism in which the electorate continually collude with their betters in order to further their immiseration. Seeing the greenspaces of my childhood filled-in with shoddy-looking, expensive housing was shocking. Fingal County Council planning department seem to be giving the go-ahead to build any and every piece of rubbish using the excuse of "housing crisis" that you mention. I just returned from visiting Dublin (mainly the Northside) after several years away and was irritated by: ridiculous levels of private vehicle usage; broken in-carriage electronic stop announcements on the DART (light electric rail); difficulty in planning trips connecting dublin bus/iarnrod eireann/dart; bus stops without proper shelters; drivers parking on the pavement(sidewalk); lack of courtesy from drivers at non-signalized intersection. On a positive note I will say that all (especially Dublin Bus drivers) personnel interacted with on an individual level were wonderful.