10th Biennial of European Towns and Town Planners (ECTP-CEU), Cascais 19-21 September 2013 Irish Presentation on the the paper themed City Without Public Economic Funds

1. PLANNING
for a post
CELTIC TIGER
Urban Landscape
City Without Public Economic Funds’

2. IRELAND
Young Planners Workshop 2013
Aoife Doyle, Colin Broderick, Rachel Ivers,
Stephen D. Walsh & Philip Kavanagh
19th September, 2013

3. PLANNING
for a post
CELTIC TIGER
Urban Landscape
Our paper:

4. OVERVIEW.
1

5. • 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

6. Celtic Tiger and
Entrepreneurial
Planning.
2

7. 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).

8. Irish Planning became
increasingly infused with the
ethos of entrepreneurialism ;

9. 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).

10. 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).

11. 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).

12. Housing unit completions per 1000 population for Europe in
2007

13. New postal
addresses
2005 - 2007

14. Urban Planning
in the
Celtic Tiger Era

15. National
RESPONSE.
3

16. NAMA€77 billion

17. “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)

18. local government
reform

19. National Spatial Strategy (NSS)
Regional Planning Guidelines (RPG’s)
Development Plans
Local Area Plans (LAP’s)
National
Regional
Local
irish Planning System

21. NSS
Abandoned

22. local
RESPONSEs.
4

23. PROPOSED DEMANDED?
THE RESULT

24. local responses /
alternative futures
for
Ireland’s urban
development

25. LIVING cities

26. vulnerable
STRENGTH POWER

27. community
response

28. Granby Park

29. Granby
Park

30. Thomas
Street

31. Future
Potential?
Prime Location
Large Development
inviting foreign investment

32. Viability?

33. New Central BANK
HQ.

34. Towards More Adaptive
and Resilient Spatial
Planning.
5

35. 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)

36. Conclusions
6

37. 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

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

39. ‘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)

40. THANK YOU