Madam, - Dr Edgar Morgenroth of the ESRI decries the lack of social planning in the midst of our massive housing boom (Business This Week, July 22nd). His prediction that the greater Dublin area of the future will have little community spirit challenges one of the central values of Irish society.
Let me tell Dr Morgenroth that these soul-less settlements, not communities, are being created in many other parts of the country. Disproportionately large developments of poor quality housing are swamping the villages and towns of rural Ireland, destroying the very qualities that made them desirable. Developers are now being allowed to run the show, but they won't have to take responsibility for the consequences.
By the 1960s British society had concluded that high-rise flats and massive housing estates were not the way forward. People were never intended to live in concrete jungles and certainly they are not places for children to grow up in. Instead of learning from our neighbours, we made the same mistakes. We are now pulling down what was built back then. And yet, we continue to repeat these mistakes again. When will we ever learn?
If Britain has had to learn the hard way that development without social planning is a recipe for long-term social disaster, will we have to pay the same price for the same mistakes in the form of social breakdown? It won't require rocket science to get it right. Just a little less greed and a little more vision would make the difference between a community worth living in and one that's not. - Yours, etc,
Fr HARRY BOHAN,
Shannon,
Co Clare.