Liveable cities

Liveability –the Regeneration Challenge

Ciarán Cuffe , Planning Lecturer and City Councillor

Queens University Belfast, 19th May 2015

Liveability

Liveability

The ability of places to provide

for the needs of all generations

to learn from, benefit and help

each other throughout their lives

In an age of limits our inner cities can

continue to act as role models of low-carbon

walkeable, cycleable and vibrant

communities

Role of the Inner City

Dublin: affluence and deprivation

Dublin’s Inner City

Belfast: affluence and deprivation

Development

• Focus on regeneration and refurbishment

• Importance of area based planning schemes

• Mixed use

• Near zero energy

• Walkability

Refurbished Seventeenth Century Buildings

New buildings and public space in Dublin’s Docklands

Old and new along the Liffey Quays

Community

• Potential for community gain

• Places for inter-cultural gathering

• Involvement of residents

• Importance of festivals, pop-up events

• Mixed-income neighbourhoods

Importance of community participation in regeneration

Phoenix Park, a place for intercultural encounters and learning

Signs of community ownership of place in Phibsborough

Community festival in Stoneybatter

Place-making

• Antithesis of Corbusian Ideal

• Need to reclaim the Street

• Importance of temporary uses

• Place as a social construct

• Potential of city-owned small sites

• Redesign balance between hard and soft modes of travel

Modernity: a false dawn?

Lubetkin at London Zoo: disliked by penguins

Pop-up Granby Park on Dominick Street

Children fishing on Liffey Quays

Derelict city-owned sites: potential for redevelopment

Anti-social places in the heart of the city, traffic comes first

Travel/Spend share: Dublin CBD

Conclusions

• Cities must constantly reinvent themselves

• Empowering communities crucial to success

• Place-making must be inclusive

• Mobility is too important to be left to engineers

• Heritage can be a springboard for regeneration

[email protected]

One more thing…

One more thing…

Some thoughts on Belfast

Victorian Legacy

Twentieth Century Horror

Skywalks as street Killers

Embodied Carbon: -strip and refurbish?

Possibilities for wraparound development

Living over the Shop?

Successful refurbishment, but traffic calming required

Potential for residential conversion

Conclusions

• Cities must constantly reinvent themselves

• Empowering communities crucial to success

• Place-making must be inclusive

• Mobility is too important to be left to engineers

• Heritage can be a springboard for regeneration

[email protected]