As Ireland prepares a replacement for the national spatial strategy (NSS), the time has come to have a serious conversation about our cities. This means confronting one of the nation’s key long-term challenges – our lopsided national urban structure and our failure to prepare for an urban future.

Ireland badly needs a series of strong “second-tier” cities to drive regional economic development and to encourage a more balanced spatial structure. Recent multimillion large-scale jobs and development initiatives such as Cork’s new major new office, retail and bio-pharma projects, as well as Limerick’s ambitious €500 million “Twenty Thirty” initiative signal the type of renaissance necessary to promote national balance and more sustainable growth. However, we need to align national policy, and more importantly, national thinking, towards this agenda.

There has been much discussion about regional economic development in the more rural parts of Ireland – usually presented as a simplistic “Dublin versus everywhere else” caricature. Unfortunately, much of this discussion has overlooked the critical issue – our failure to build up a hierarchy of strong “second-tier” cities which can complement Dublin – while also supporting regional and rural opportunities. However, the narrative is usually confined to a discussion about rural policy, based on the idea that economic development can, or should be, somehow transported away from Dublin towards rural areas.

Balanced regional development

The approach taken by the State after 2002 ignored the important role the second-tier cities could play in regional and national development. The result was the underperformance of most of those cities (aside from Cork) and their constituent regions, and the continued overdominance of the greater Dublin area (GDA).

Analysis undertaken in UCC’s Centre for Planning Education and Research indicates the idea of a regional agenda – anchored by four second-tier cities – was never taken seriously.

- In the 10 years after the NSS, the share of the State’s population recorded in the four second-tier cities combined actually declined, from 10 per cent to 9 per cent;

- The only city of scale outside the GDA is Cork, with 400,000 people residing in its city-region; none of the other three city-regions reach even half that figure;

- The geography of overdevelopment associated with the property bubble saw excessive development directed towards locations with little effective demand, effectively depriving the second-tier cities of much-needed development in housing, services and infrastructure;

- The result has been serious underinvestment in the kind of large-scale strategic projects in these city regions that would support the scale and type of urban growth envisaged (city centre brownfield locations such as docklands, and inter-city transportation links);

- In 2013, the greater Dublin area accounted for 52 per cent of national economic activity, as measured by gross value add; the only other substantial contributor was the South West (Cork) at 16.5 per cent, while the other three cities’ regions were all less than half of Cork’s;

- The pattern of population growth in these four city regions areas was strikingly non-urban. The population of the built-up areas of these cities grew by only 8 per cent between 2001 and 2011. The unserviced rural parts of these metropolitan areas grew by 25 per cent. This type of dispersal undermines the potential of these cities;

- The average population density in the four cities is only 1,300 people per square kilometre, compared to Dublin’s which is almost 3,500. These densities are much too low to provide sufficient critical mass for supporting urban services such as public transport and to encourage dynamic and vibrant urban districts;

- The Government’s national transport investment strategy has been heavily weighted towards connecting the cities to Dublin; the urgent focus though should be on connecting those cities with one another.

Alternative sphere

So then, what can we do about his? The only real prospect of achieving more balanced and equitable territorial development is one based on promoting an alternative development sphere within the country, using cities as anchors within this zone. The four cities must either be brought together, or come together, to achieve this. This involves thinking about these four cities in an entirely new way: as a series of interconnected, complementary urban centres that work collectively, devise shared futures and increasingly function as a major urban corridor that can complement and compete more favourably with Dublin.

The emergence of England’s Northern Powerhouse as an alternative development sphere to London provides us with an indication of how this can evolve in similar jurisdictions when political and economic impulses combine to articulate a strong vision for a large region. As Ireland’s second city, and the only metropolitan centre of significant scale, perhaps Cork could instigate such a conversation, providing the kind of leadership that Manchester does as part of the Northern Powerhouse grouping?

Existing trends

The new national planning framework is likely to be a much more concise and perhaps a more conceptual document than its predecessor. The strategy should start by highlighting the dangers of accepting existing trends and by firmly advocating an urban policy which recognises the role of the second-tier cities as a key driver of the regional development agenda. This means placing urban thinking right at the heart of the national development agenda.

This means talking about our cities.

William Brady is a town planner and lecturer in UCC