there is an area north of dublin city called ballymun. its just south of the airport, so it was easily visible from large parts of the city. it was built back in it mid 1960s to counteract the tenements that were (and to a lesser extant still are) in a large part of dublins city centre.

ballymun was going to be different, in a (then) rural part just outside the city, tower blocks were designed to aleviate the problems of the inner city. to go from crowded inner city to high rise – wide open – nice view – new urban design living. the problem that haunted the developement is that whilst the apartments were built is that there was no facilites around them. no social infrastructure, no sense of common ownership. instead they had wide open spaces with no centre. nothing as a focus for the community. so they were largely percieved as a failure, thus dooming public social high rises to the waste bin in ireland.

for the last eight years or so they have been redeveloping the area, building a new town to replace the tower blocks. building a main street, some decent social services and doing it all in conjunction with the local community. almost forty years of living in ballymun has created a fantastic community spirit, people helping each other out to overcome the relative harshness of the area. so now the towers are been demolished. the demolition progress slowed by asbestos fears and the first wave of new houses and low rise apartment blocks are being inhabited.

being irish we rarely learnt our lesson from things. ballymun was in many ways a disaster, but it wasnt soley the fault of them being “high rises”, it was the disconnect between the area and the people, the area and the rest of the city, the people and the society. like a lot of “new towns” or areas built in ireland over the last half century or so, there was very little social structures there. houses were built and that was it. left to fend for themselves almost.

we have some friends here in helsinki who live in a newly redeveloped area called “arabia”. its built around the arabia dishwear factory. its now an area which will have up to 6000 residents and severeal thousand work places and the uiah art college. from my friends balcony we can see an entire area devoted to sports; several tennis courts, a football pitch, a running track, a huge shopping centre, a school and all the usual things like day schools and recycling for all. the tram line that finishes a few hundred metres from the area will be extended next month. things like this happen in most developements in finland, they are almost inconcievable in an irish context (with some exceptions). there is a “suburb” of dublin called tallaght. except its population now makes it probably the second biggest city in ireland, and its got the facilites of a town a tenth its size (with the exception of a huge shopping centre). lets hope that irish planners/government and society has learnt something from its failures.

meanwhile, wider lessons have been learned. modern social housing is built on a smaller scale, with the public areas overlooked and a sense of ownership fostered. it doesn’t automatically mean an end to urban disasters. “they’re addressing ballymun, but they’re not addressing other problems,” seán kearns points out. “wait until you see the future of the vast housing estates of dublin’s satellite towns. they are time bombs.” next week, though, is about ballymun. from irish times 7th july 2004 (paid registration required)