PLANNINGfor a post

CELTIC TIGER Urban Landscape

City Without Public Economic Funds’

IRELANDYoung Planners Workshop 2013

Aoife Doyle, Colin Broderick, Rachel Ivers,Stephen D. Walsh & Philip Kavanagh

19th September, 2013

PLANNINGfor a post

CELTIC TIGER Urban Landscape

Our paper:

OVERVIEW.

1

• Celtic Tiger and Entrepreneurial Planning • The Response to the Crisis – NAMA • Spatial Planning at the Crossroads • Alternative Future’s for Ireland’s Urban Development• The Living Cities Initiatives • Community Responses • The Economic Viability of Temporary Uses• Towards More Adaptive and Resilient Spatial Planning• Conclusion

OVERVIEW

Celtic Tiger and Entrepreneurial Planning.

2

During the 1990s the so called ‘Celtic Tiger’ Irish economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5%, more than three times the European average at the time (Murphy, 2000).

Irish Planning became increasingly infused with the ethos of entrepreneurialism ;

A new focus on Ireland’s cities brought about a wave of market led regeneration efforts, encouraged by an availability of cheap credit, tax incentives and a climate which encouraged the creation of numerous public private partnerships (PPP’s).

The Irish economic model as ‘predicated on constant growth to function’ and this focus spilled over into planning practice.

While Ireland’s recession mirrors what is going on in most European states and further afield, the particular causes of the Irish economic crisis were decidedly local in origin as the Irish economy had become unsustainably dependent on the construction industry (and house building specifically).

Indeed it has been argued that the goal of Ireland’s loose regulatory system was to ‘encourage the market rather than restrain it’(Kirby, 2009: 9).

Housing unit completions per 1000 population for Europe in 2007

New postal addresses 2005 - 2007

Urban Planningin theCeltic Tiger Era

NationalRESPONSE.

3

NAMA€77 billion

“obtain so far as possible the best achievable financial return for the State having regard to the amount paid, plus whatever additional working or development capital costs for the acquired bank assets.”

(Section 10 of the NAMA Act 2009)

local government

reform

National Spatial Strategy (NSS)

Regional Planning Guidelines (RPG’s)

Development Plans

Local Area Plans (LAP’s)

National

Regional

Local

irish Planning System

NSSAbandoned

localRESPONSEs.

4

PROPOSED DEMANDED?

THE RESULT

local responses / alternative futures

for  Ireland’s urban

development

LIVING cities

vulnerable

STRENGTH POWER

communityresponse

Granby Park

GranbyPark

Thomas Street

Future Potential?

Prime LocationLarge Developmentinviting foreign investment

Viability?

New Central BANK HQ.

Towards More Adaptive and Resilient Spatial Planning.

5

Towards more adaptive and resilient spatial planning? The scale of the current global economic crisis has undermined and raised questions about some of the core assumptions that dominated urban policy thinking in many global cities in the 1990s and 2000s (Raco, 2011).

“As well as a catastrophic failure in Ireland’s banking and financial regulatory system, there has been a catastrophic failure of the

planning system” (NIRSA, 2010: 2)

‘Is this the end of spatial planning in Ireland?’ (Kitchin, 2013)

Conclusions

6

Seeking to Recover rather than Reform?

Thus far, the Irish response to the crisis—like that of many other nations—has been described as reacting rather than acting. It is critical that current circumstances do not combine to promote a tendency to short termism and a predomination of non strategic thinking and action.

Strategic Spatial Planning is crucial in moving forward

http://rustyb.github.io/ectp-map/

‘If a city is struck by disaster it follows that the original state was one in which it was vulnerable to disaster in the first place’ (Klein et al, 2003)

THANK YOU