I have a complicated relationship with the “Coolest Neighbourhoods in the World” list, provided by Time Out magazine. On one hand, such lists are a godsend to dried-out columnists who have bled so much of themselves on the page over the years that they have become empty husks. Communities should be celebrated. People should have a list of places to visit outside the main tourist traps in major cities.
On the other hand, they represent everything that is wrong with our world. According to Time Out, the kind of neighbourhoods that made this year’s list included “homely, village-like enclaves with tight-knit communities to revitalised city-centre hubs and formerly dormant, industrial areas transformed into creative districts”. See what I mean? Call the local priest.
By using terms like “revitalised” and “formerly industrial”, these lists tell on themselves. What they mean is “areas that used to be working class but aren’t anymore, so we can call them cool now”.
What they want is an area where you’ll hear the odd working-class accent on the street, a market stall here, an old man’s pub there. But with enough overpriced cafes to feel “safe”, knowing the locals are being edged out by soaring property prices.
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In a surprise to no one, the Liberties – the beating heart of Dublin 8 – appeared on this year’s list. It’s one of the few remaining working-class inner-city suburbs on the south side. It is a place where horses pass market stalls at the weekend and people who visit its pubs and bars remark how it’s the last bit of “old Dublin”.
It was my home for most of my five years in Dublin, simply because it was where my family is from and it was what I knew. Going up Meath Street and having a neighbour call out to me in my grandad’s accent buffered my homesickness for Australia. He didn’t seem so far away.
But because I wasn’t living with family and paid high rents that they wouldn’t have been able to afford, I became part of the problem. I was the young professional developers and property speculators salivated over – the kind of eejit who would pay huge money to live close to the city in an “authentic” community with “buzzy nightlife”.
There’s no point decrying gentrification while actively being part of it. But I also witnessed snapshots of how the “new” and “old” people could pull together without excluding the latter. For example, I saw middle-class neighbours call on their cranky email writing tendencies to push for more resources to the benefit of all local children. The lack of playing fields became national news, while there is no sign of a youth centre that burned down four years ago being replaced, although it’s not for the want of locals trying.
Cafes and bars don’t make neighbourhoods “cool”. It’s the people. What makes Dublin special is that real people still live in the centre of it. That’s what separates it from lifeless cities full of empty office blocks and Tesco Expresses. If we lose that, we’re stuffed. Communities take decades to build and once they’re gone, they’re gone.
I don’t want to hear claims about ‘cleaning up’ or ‘regenerating’ neighbourhoods like the Liberties
We need to protect Dublin’s inner-city communities with the same vigour afforded to rural Ireland. Developers can come to Dublin and plonk a co-living space or an aparthotel with vague and undelivered promises of community amenities. But I would not be allowed to build a one-off home in my boyfriend’s rural hometown on my own as an Australian. It would not satisfy “local need” requirements. I would have to prove immediate family or economic links. This is to “protect the amenity, recreational and heritage value” of the area. Such an approach could just as easily be applied to Dublin neighbourhoods.
Working-class communities can only exist if people can afford to live and work there. If all new developments required a concentration of affordable long-term housing, this would truly satisfy “local need” instead of endless build-to-rents, hotels, student accommodation and co-living spaces.
I don’t want to hear claims about “cleaning up” or “regenerating” neighbourhoods like the Liberties. It’s an insult to the people living there. It suggests there’s something wrong with them that can be remedied with a lick of paint. It’s dehumanising and has the indelible mark of classism.
“Now it’s lovely, but I wouldn’t have walked through there 10 years ago.” Great – don’t walk through it now, so. You don’t deserve to if you think like that. You don’t get to have the stall traders ask after your granny or bang pots and pans to ward off bad luck on the New Year while Imelda May sings on her parents’ doorstep.
I know you can’t build a city on sentimentality alone, nor can you halt progress. But let’s do it without losing Dublin’s key ingredient – its people.
