Housing sprawl and the unsustainable expansion of Dublin city into surrounding counties has continued despite the recession a report commissioned by Dublin City Council has found.
There has been no reversal of the "American-type" sprawl pattern that saw Dublin workers flee the capital during the boom years for cheaper housing in surrounding counties according to the Democratic Trends in Dublin report.
The very strong national population growth over the last two decades, when there was a 30 per cent growth in the numbers living in the State, was not mirrored in the Dublin region, where growth was six per cent below the national average.
However when it is considered that the Dublin region includes Fingal which had a population growth of 79 per cent from 1991 to 2009, the change in the population of the city council area is all the more significant.
A deeper analysis of the population changes shows even more striking differences within the city council’s domain. While the growth in population of the city’s local authority area was 9.8 per cent over the last 20 years, far behind the national average, this growth was largely in the very centre of the city.
In the inner city the population increased by 62 per cent, but the rest of the Dublin city area actually saw a population decline – bucking the national trend – of 1.2 per cent.
“Given strong national and regional increases in population in this period, this loss of population is remarkable,” the report said.
The report, a collaboration by researchers from University College Dublin, Dublin Institute of Technology and Dublin City Council, analysed census information from 1991 to 2011 and the impact of the population changes on the city.
