Over the past year, I’ve been working on a podcast series called Saving The City, examining the issues cities are still facing post-pandemic, and, using Dublin as a jumping off point, offering practical solutions to address them. As a European capital, Dublin city centre remains underpopulated, expensive, behind the times regarding amenities, public space, and cultural offerings, and increasingly less attractive as a destination. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Discourse around Dublin often takes the shape of existential fatalism, or overly concerned with its reputation as a tourist offering. What also emerged during the dozens of interviews with international and local experts, is that we have things the wrong way around when it comes to addressing the city’s issues. A top-down approach or superficial interventions will not tackle the fundamentals. We need to address the quality of life of those who call it home, from the ground up.
There are multiple potential approaches one could take to do this, but were those tasked with “revitalising” the city to focus on a single one, then there is a very clear pathway: address the needs of working-class communities living in the city centre. By focusing on the needs of people who aren’t rich, the direction of the city becomes honed on livability rather than “experience”. An experience is temporary. Everyday livability is robust and long-term.
Were the needs of people who aren’t rich met (and that can include Dubliners who live in the city generationally, new immigrant communities, students, and populations with less disposable income more generally), a different kind of city would emerge, one that would be more appealing to everyone, including international tourists, office workers, middle-class communities, people journeying into the city from Dublin’s suburbs and around the country, and so on. When we look to the needs of working-class communities, public housing becomes a priority, public space is improved, public amenities become more numerous, street-life becomes more vibrant, local businesses are more supported, markets multiply, community wealth-building can happen, co-operative models come into play, civic pride is enhanced, and safety through social cohesion, vibrancy, public happiness, and a thrumming urban ecosystem is achieved.
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All of this chimes with the guiding principles we foreground on this podcast series: the urbanist Jane Jacob’s foundational philosophy on a collective approach to urban life that ultimately serves everyone, and where capital and property ownership don’t exert a disproportional influence. Jacobs wrote that: “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because and only when, they are created by everybody.” While the series is packed with big ideas and radical solutions, here are 10 lesser-thought-of things that would improve Dublin.
Public bathing amenities
A public Lido in George’s Dock, diving amenities on the Liffey, and rebuilding derelict public baths on the city coast would dramatically enhance recreational facilities in the city. Dublin Bay is a Unesco biosphere, but is dogged by poor water quality. Looking to Paris’ ambition for making the Seine swimmable should be our goal for the Liffey.
Address build-to-rent development soullessness
Build-to-rent blocks have sprang up around the city but the alleged ambitions of fostering new communities and goals of “place-making” tend to end at construction hoarding declarations. Rent is too expensive, and street life is absent. Empty ground-floor commercial units need to be opened up to community groups, arts collectives, and others, to breathe life into these developments.
Tackle racist crime
Safety is spoken about a lot in Dublin city, yet missing from the conversation is that many of those made vulnerable to violence are people of colour. Government needs to get serious about tackling racist crime, abuse, harassment and hate on our streets.
Reforming licensing laws for more vibrant and diverse night-time culture
After dark, our draconian licensing laws mean there are few late-night options, with essentially nothing happening after 2.30am. Midweek nightlife is especially threadbare. The long-promised licensing law reform hasn’t happened, curtailing business activity, reducing the number of nightclubs, limiting options for tourists, and rendering the city’s streets desolate at night. Licensing reform isn’t a panacea, but it would help.
[ Just how did Ireland end up with such weird licensing laws?Opens in new window ]
Open school playgrounds at weekends
On our first episode, the urbanist Carlos Moreno (who popularised the 15-minute city concept drawing from Jane Jacobs’ theories) details a simple initiative in Paris where schoolyards were opened at weekends and are also being greened. This results in a network of mini-parks across the city, and utilises what already exists, creating “new” public space.
Co-operative models for purchasing buildings and creating community-owned enterprises
Financing needs to be much more accessible to groups pursuing co-operative models and interested in everything from saving community spaces to starting grassroots initiatives with public good at their heart. One leading force for this in the city is Bohemians FC, who under club climate justice officer Seán McCabe have attracted Bernie Sanders and Mary Robinson to endorse their initiatives.
An abundance of public seating
Public seating should be much more present on retail streets, and across the city centre. The more public seating there is, the more welcoming streets are to the elderly, young families, and teenagers. The more people can hang out without a commercial transaction, the more people there are on streets, and the safer they are.
End gated communities in working-class areas
Luxury purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) gets built in areas of Dublin city where people are least likely to go on to third-level education and have the most acute housing needs. This is where public housing, not PBSA should be built. Gated PBSA developments in working-class communities embed a sense of segregation, and foster resentment and a feeling of disorientation in one’s own community.
Lighting
In 2023, Dublin City Council began “upgrading” public lighting, replacing 40,000 light bulbs with LED lights. While the goals are to address energy efficiency, the impact on ambience has been less successful. Increasingly, public lighting is white and glaring. Lower lighting with its glare shielded is better for insect life, and a softer, tungsten-like glow generates a more pleasant ambience for people.
[ From candles to LEDs – the transformation of Dublin’s lightsOpens in new window ]
A coherent design aesthetic
Dublin desperately needs a coherent design aesthetic across street furniture, paving, signage, bollards, street lights, and everything one of our podcast guests − the Financial Times architecture and design critic Edwin Heathcote - calls “in-between architecture”. The city’s “look” has become jumbled and ad hoc. Protect what’s charming, and stick to a design identity that speaks to the capital’s character, not the anywhere-ness of cheap homogeny.
Saving the City launches on all podcast platforms on September 10th
