Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Time For A Fresh Look At Housing As Eu Report Shames Ireland, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Now that a new minority administration is here, it’s time to look at ways this government can improve on previous ones. One positive step could be to take on board the findings of a recent EU report on procurement practices. Entitled “public procurement—a study on administrative capacity in the EU”, it looks at the systems and structures of individual member states.

You Can Forget About A Housing Recovery With Our Skills Drain, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Over the past 10 years or so, civil service and local authority staffing levels have been dramatically reduced. Those who retired have not been replaced, and other employees have left for the private sector or have taken early retirement because they were unhappy with pay cuts and changes to their contracts.

The results have been mixed. No doubt money has been saved through reduced state pay and some of the employees who left might have been of limited value in the first place. Workloads have increased for those left behind, but there have also been costs that show not all …

Transitional Urban Voids In Austin, Texas, Courtney A. Tarver

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

A city’s urban fabric is constantly evolving through development and decay under the fluctuating rates of habitation. Cities are growing rapidly as populations climb higher, with new demands for the incoming waves of people seeking employment and a place to call home. Austin, Texas is the fastest growing American city today, with a population growth rate of three percent per year. With this growth and its demands for open space, open spaces in the form of urban voids and temporary use spaces become an interest to designers as spaces with flexibility. The approach of this thesis is to understand these …

The Impact Of Successful Ncaa Division I Athletics Programs On The Social Capital Of Urban Communities, Paul Woody

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examined how urban communities might grow social capital from the passion and support offered by a college athletics program. Given the increasing emphasis on fiscal responsibility from local governments and public universities, recognizing how college athletics programs influence local community social capital, such as anchor attachments formed by alumni and fans, is an important perspective. Historically, the exhausted conversation has focused on economics, such as the economic impact of athletic venues and franchises. (Coates, 2007; Crompton, 2004). Through decades of research, social capital has been measured at various depths and viewed through social, economic, psychological, and even historical …

Low-Cost Housing Is Possible Only If We Prioritise Value For Money, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Assessing value for money is nowstandard practice for government departments and agencies. These bodies, including the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor- General, evaluate the economy and efficiency with which state bodies acquire, use and dispose of resources. This is a positive step in a state system that isn’t very keen on post-hoc evaluation. Since 2009, the Department of the Taoiseach has insisted that all legislation be subject to a regulatory impact assessment—to identify likely positive and negative outcomes of projects. To date, very little legislation has been subject to such an assessment. Evidence is still a dirty word in …

Building Regulations Are In A Terrible State, But I Have A Solution, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Inspection of buildings by the state during construction and on completion has led to a huge gap in Ireland’s building history. An almost total lack of state inspection—and, since 1990, a reliance on self-regulation —has contributed to situations such as those at Priory Hall in Dublin and Millfield Manor in Kildare.

If We’Re Playing By The Rules, It Has To Be A Good Game, Lorcan Sirr

Media

In the 2015 book Rule Breakers, author Niamh Hourigan postulates that Ireland’s success and downfall was due to personal relationships being much more important than rules. She says that a “weak rules and strong relationships” tension permeates Irish life, and not only at the top. This seems to have led to Ireland having a reputation of being friendly and open, and an easy place in which to do business. It has also created a place where corruption has been far too easy and widespread as a result of the power and influence of relationships.

That’S Enough Talking, Let’S Have A Proper Plan For Housing, Lorcan Sirr

Media

On March 31 acting environment minister Alan Kelly assembled the third housing and homeless forum in two years. It brought together housing NGOs, Nama, local authorities and bodies such as the Central Bank and Construction Industry Federation, as well as TDs from all political parties. The forum was interesting for a few reasons. First, the issues facing housing haven’t changed in the past 24 months. If anything, they’ve intensified, but the underlying problems remain the same. Second, the participant responses will have been mainly the same, too, although also intensified. So why have such an event?

Deposit Scheme Is Welcome — But We’Re Still Playing Catch-Up, Lorcan Sirr

Media

As an increasing number of people find permanent homes in the private rental sector, issues of contention between landlords and tenants will be more frequent. Right nowabout 3% of the population has the legal right to evict more than 20% of households, and so security of tenure will become a key area of debate and discussion. The issue must be addressed, unless government is happy for a significant proportion of its population to exist at the whim of a much smaller percentage, and is willing to deal with the social, health and economic fallout from that.

Want To End Rental Bias? Start Building More Social Housing., Lorcan Sirr

Media

When the rent supplement was introduced in 1977 for people in financial need within the private rented sector, the intention was that it would be temporary. Almost 40 years on, it is stillwith us.

Room For Improvement In Kelly’S End-Of-Term Report Card, Lorcan Sirr

Media

As the newgovernment is formed, history may not be kind to Alan Kelly and his tenure as minister for the environment. Many will argue he has presided over a department that has made housing and development more difficult, not less, and that he has put the interests of lobby groups before consumers. Most recently, he has annexed local government by giving his department the power to set planning policy by diktat with no reference to local politicians or the public. It’s easy to forget that there has been an actual minister for housing, Paudie Coffey, who went under the radar …

Complicated Ideology Is Costing The State Its Social Housing., Lorcan Sirr

Media

Credit should always be given where it’s due. Noel Dempsey therefore deserves a paragraph in Irish housing history for his innovative move in 2000, when, as environment minister, he decreed that developers must set aside one unit for social or affordable housing for every four they build.

The Future Looks Precarious For New Breed Of Long-Term Renters, Lorcan Sirr

Media

It is becoming increasingly evident across Europe and Ireland that there may be a generation of people who will never own their own home. This is not necessarily down to direct housing issues such as affordability or supply—there are broader forces at work here. These people have no predictability in their lives and no security. They are a large and growing social class. Yet they are relatively powerless and are at the mercy of forces way beyond our shores, so even national governments may find it difficult to help them. They are known as the precariat.

Environment Department Doesn’T Have A Clue On Housing, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Over the past two years Sherlock Holmes’s evil foe Professor Moriarty has been wandering the corridors of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, wreaking sublime havoc and leaving several reputation-damaging debacles in his wake. The damage has been so bad that in late 2014 an internal review was carried out. Released to RTE under freedom of information laws, the report was critical of the housing capabilities and activities of the department. Given its findings were from an internal probe, one wonders what an external investigation would have made of it. A lot more damning?

My Manifesto For A Bold Housing Policy That We Can Build On, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Current housing policy is a ragbag of policies, each with their own timelines— some more specific than others, some more realistic, some embarrassingly awful and others potentially beneficial. With a general election in the offing, therefore, I’m curious to hear what the various parties and aspirant TDs have to say about housing. Pre-election housing policies are usually poorly thought-out, often populist and frequently have no evidence to justify them. Worse, they demonstrate little understanding of the likely intended and unintended outcomes of their proposals.

What Is The Impetus To Move? Amenity-Rich Residential Clubs And Retirement Housing Aspirations Of The Soon-To-Be Old, Tris Kee

Faculty of Design & Environment (THEi)

Hong Kong’s population is aging rapidly, yet the city is still struggling to provide an adequate housing supply for its soon-to-be old cohort. By examining the needs and aspirations of the soon-to-be old population through the theoretical frameworks for elderly housing and elderly migration, the relationship between amenity-rich residential clubs and retirement housing aspirations of future retirees become clear. This paper finds that the soon-to-be old cohort is aspired to better medical, leisure, and community facilities in their residential vicinities when considering their retirement living environment, underlining the appeal of amenity-rich residential clubs; however, most of the soon-to-old old cohort …

Don’T Try To Inflate House Prices For The Benefit Of The Banks, Lorcan Sirr

Media

When it comes to housing, the constant comparisons with the “peak prices” of 2007 make me wonder whether we’re about to lose the plot again. Perpetual benchmarking against an irrational peak suggests those destructive prices are a target we should aim to achieve, whereas nothing could be further from the truth.

Politicians Turn A Deaf Ear To Planning And Housing Problems, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Just before Christmas I spent an hour with RTE recording a radio programme reflecting on some of the year’s most significant building and development issues. We discussed building defects, houses being flooded, ghost estates, and so on. After each clip played I gave my analysis of the situation, and it wasn’t long before I found myself repeating the same line, which was effectively: “I bet you there’s a planning report somewhere that says, ‘We don’t recommend you do this’.” But it was done anyway because the politicians—local and national—for their own reasons said “do it”, when the professionals said “don’t”. …

Impermeable Assemblages: Flooding, Urban Infrastructure, And Stormwater Politics In São Paulo, Brazil, Nate Millington

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This project analyzes efforts to remake the relationship between water and city in São Paulo, Brazil. Currently experiencing overlapping problems of flooding, scarcity, and pollution, São Paulo illustrates the challenges of managing water in a contemporary mega-city. This dissertation subsequently considers the city’s water management through an approach that borrows from urban political ecology, social studies of science, and post-colonial urban theory. With an epistemological grounding in these literatures, this project analyzes ongoing conversations about water management in São Paulo, and focuses on how water is encountered and engaged with in the landscape by engineers, artists, and activists. This project …

The Storytelling Of Public Spaces: Rhetoric, Community, And Social Change, Lindsay Kathryn Hamilton

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation examines how public art, broadly defined, contributes to the dialogue of public places. It assumes that public places are filled with rhetoric--from commercial, governmental, private, and other sources. This rhetoric is mainly concerned with the public as audience, receivers of information who are then expected to act in certain ways - following the directions of street signs or entering shops when a window display attracts their attention, for example. Public art, particularly community-based art, can be used to make public places more democratic, providing platforms for people and communities to talk back and reassert their identities. The case …

Harnessing The Power Of Data Can Help Solve Our Housing Needs, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Ireland has traditionally been poor at collecting data, collating statistics and disseminating information. It’s not that we are an innumerate country; I think it is more that facts often inconveniently jar with opinion on a range of topics, from rural Ireland to road safety, to housing.

We Can’T Expect ‘The Market’ To Provide A Housing Policy, Lorcan Sirr

Media

As the government grapples with establishing a worthwhile housing policy, it would do well to remember that affordability is key. As companies increasingly choose to locate in or near cities, and people followjobs, most of Ireland’s housing needs will be in the greater Dublin area. In 2015, about half the population lives on just 20% of Ireland’s surface area, but by 2030 nearly half the nation will be living on just 10% of the land. Figures vary but the Dublin area will need 8,000-10,000 housing units per year.

Are Bay Area Cities Inclusive? Evaluating How San Francisco Bay Area Cities Can Address Environmental Justice Challenges By Strengthening Their Engagement Practices With Low-Income And Minority Communities Through The California Environmental Quality Act Process, Kenneth Antonio Rosales

Master's Projects

No abstract provided.

Can’T Buy, Don’T Want To Rent? The Catalans Have A Third Option, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Creativity is generally lacking in Irish policymaking, and this is as evident in housing, as it is in other areas. There is a reversion to the mean in times of crisis, where the usual methods, which have often failed, otherwise we wouldn’t have a crisis, are returned to. Einstein had something to say about this, and it wasn’t complimentary. We’re seeing it once again in efforts to get the building industry off its behind by using taxpayers’ money as an incentive, as if it’s 1996 all over again. Before you know it, we’ll all be buying apartments in Bulgaria.

Discover Joyce's Dublin By Reading And Running, Barry Sheehan

Academic Articles

James Joyce told his friend Frank Budgen. “‘I want’ said Joyce, as we were walking down the Universitätstrasse, ‘to give a picture of Dublin so complete that if the city one day suddenly disappeared from the earth it could be reconstructed out of my book.’” (Budgen, 1960, p.67, 68).

This research looks at the relevance of Dublin to Joyce’s writings and to the relevance of Joyce’s writings to Dublin. It is concerned with the virtual Dublin of Joyce’s writings, the physical manifestation of Dublin over time, and the relationships between them.

Numerous scholars read and analyse the writings of Joyce …

Squeeze On Space Lifts Profit But Shrinks Living Standards, Lorcan Sirr

Media

When it comes to the topic of apartment sizes, planners and local authorities should keep this old adage to the forefront of their minds: less is not more. Ireland’s size standards for residential housing have tended to followBritain’s since about the 1940s. The UK has been producing ever-smaller units and with, in effect, no minimum national standard, it has the smallest homes in western Europe. This is not a trend we need to follow. Minimum space standards for a one-bedroomapartment in Dublin reduced from 484 sq ft in 1961 to 344 sq ft in 1987—and finally up to a more …

Let’S Look To Uk To Solve Problems Of Our Ageing Population, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Europe is going grey, very grey. In 1800 no country had a life expectancy beyond age 40, but by 2050 one in three people in Europe will be over 60. By then, one in 10 will be over 80—nearly 500,000 people in Ireland. The ageing population will bring its own problems, caused mainly by health, income and government support. Denmark spends about €5,000 a year on social protection in old age; Latvia, Romania and Croatia spend €500. In Ireland, in 2011, the figure was €2,000.

Live In The Sticks If You Want But The Cost Of Services Will Soar, Lorcan Sirr

Media

As Ireland changes from an agricultural production-based country to one more dependent on its cities, rural Ireland finds itself squeezed between the need to support the source of most of its revenue and a desire to protect its rural identity. It’s difficult to have both, and TDs and ministers frequently find themselves in the unenviable position of trying to defend the closure of garda stations and hospitals in their own constituencies.

Our Reliance On Family For Housing Support Won’T Last Forever, Lorcan Sirr

Media

History is more important than geography in explaining our relationship with housing. We have a funny relationship with housing in Ireland, one that goes beyond the usual explanation of our land and property obsession being a post-colonial hang-up. Given our location at the northwest edge of Europe, it would be logical to assume Ireland would have a similar approach to housing as Germany, France and the Netherlands. We are different from our regional neighbours, however, and more like our distant cousins in Malta, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece.

Opportunity Knocks For Developers To Meet Students’ Demands, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Student accommodation is in short supply in Ireland, an issue that was covered in these pages last week. As a housing analyst, I see the topic arising time and time again. In a radio studio recently, Kevin Donoghue, the president of the Union of Students of Ireland, told me that, for the first time, it was not only first-year students who were asking for housing advice, but also second- and third-year students. Students who should have been able to house themselves. There are about 25,000 students in the private rental sector in Ireland. In Britain and Belgium, where I went …