Frank McDonald is the former environment editor of the Irish Times, and the author of several books, including The Destruction of Dublin (1985), Saving the City (1989), and The Construction of Dublin
A project to let citizen developers build homes in the inner city sounded like such a good idea when it was first floated in the depths of the recession. Unfortunately, it has fallen at an early hurdle.
If the houses are built to anything like the standards that apply in Austria or Scandinavia, the families who’ll end up living in them won’t want to leave.
We can’t kick everybody out of Clontarf and Sandymount. So we’d better have a good plan for how to protect them from flooding, which means more than building a view-blocking wall.
Transfixed like a rabbit in headlamps by the fear of being sued for damages, engineers are still applying old thinking – as exemplified by new guardrails near St Stephen’s Green, writes Frank McDonald.
Most of those opposed to making Dublin’s city centre nicer for pedestrians, cyclists and public-transport users are car-users who live out in the suburbs. Why should the city be designed for them?
Grimy footpaths, litter in the streets, waste bags on the steps of houses, people pissing where they please: something must be done about dirty Dublin.
