Taking back the city : Citizen participation in urban planning in Dublin, Ireland

Sammanfattning: As we find ourselves in the midst of a planetary trend towards urbanisation, we must acknowledge that urban spaces are linked in a network of metabolic consumption and production that impact not only those recognised as ‘urban dwellers’, but are incorporated into a global structure. Ireland is no exception, with development centred around Dublin, a ‘primate city’ with a vastly larger population than others in the region. Dublin’s Inner City areas have in recent decades been marked by a series of large-scale interventions aimed at reconstituting a new vision of Ireland as a global, modern city home to a tech-savvy workforce. Yet as Dublin explores its post-recession identity as a hub for investment in tech and finance, its urban population continues to grow in ways that are seen to disenfranchise existing Inner City communities. This study explores the perceptions of residents of Inner City Dublin engaged in urban planning processes, in the hopes of making manifest the goals and desires driving participation through various channels, both formal and ‘radical’. A case is made for the city as a site of a post-political condition by questioning the role and efficacy of official consultatory channels, as well as in contrasting held imaginaries presented by interviewees and those presented by official planning documents. Attempts by Dublin City Council to market Dublin as a ‘creative’ city, intent on monetising aspects of cultural identity as a global competitor intent on drawing investment and foreign talent is considered representative of post-politics, contrasted by urban residents’ desires to safeguard the existence of vibrant communities within the Inner City who now risk exclusion.