Is Dublin An 'Ugly' City?

greyed

Dublin is definetly not an ugly city, the problem is that its scruffy It has massive potential its just not realised for various bull**** reasons. Its rough around the edges but if you take your eyes off the street and look up at the place it has so much promise.

holystungun9

I'm no architect, but as nice as that new bridge is down by the convention centre, I appreciate the two sets of counter balance, riveted iron bridges around there much much more. My guess is that a lot of people don't take any notice of them as they walk past or drive over them. They are two sets of lifting bridges that have these big water tanks on top and really beautiful curved iron beams for them to roll back on. Trying not to sound like a weirdo, they are so so nice, especially if you appreciate the work involved their construction.

davearthurs

Dublin is very bad to get around as a pedestrian given the public transport is so bad, so unfortunately it means anything not in the dead center of the city is lost - IMMA, Smithfield, Collins Barracks etc.,

Anything modern and not from the Georgian period is basically ugly unfortunately. ie. anything we've built ourselves. Central bank area and that ugly new building + wasted space opposite the Olympia etc.,

But it's also a case that we (i.e. DCC) are terrible at maintaining anything in the city - cycle lanes, boardwalk, smithfield, o'connell street - the list goes on. As soon as something new is built to fanfare it is left to fall apart from that moment on. Bins are left until the last minute to empty.

There are very few roads really in the city center areas, yet the potholes and slap on tarmac fix it jobs are terrible. The area in front of Chapters bookshop has been ridiculously bad for ages but they haven't fixed it. Currently they have patched up one side - looks ugly though.

The Northside of the liffey city center is for some reason just left to fall apart. Step out at Tara street Dart station and the station is disgusting, never cleaned or looked after. They just don't bother at this stage. Yes there are a lot more dodgy characters and scumbags in the area, but that doesn't mean you should encourage that by just ignoring it.

If you can't maintain what you have you just aren't doing your job. And they can't use the excuse of not having money - it is in a large part a matter of enforcing the shops and owners to look after their area and not put up horrible signage and posters and clean up their shopfronts and wash down their pavements now and then. If the city had a proper lord mayor system with power you could sort out a lot of things pretty quick. Doesn't seem to be the will there for some reason.

The Orb

The centre gas nice parts but other parts that have to be levelled. Also O'Connell St. , as the city's main street is a shameful dump. Tatty shops, scumbags, junkies and dangerous at night. O'Connell St and it's environs should be a showpiece for the city but falls way way short.

davearthurs

Not PC but I've always felt that the problem is you have too many council flat complexes in close proximity to the very center of the city off O'Connell Street - I can't think of any other city that has this. So I don't think they will ever be able to clean up that area and make it safer.

But there is no excuse for allowing all the fast food joints to open beside each other. I think there is a supermacs, burger king and McDonalds beside each other on O'Connell street. Why? And do they really think they can get in better retailers when they fill it up with fast food joints and Spars?

The danger now though is that Grafton Street is getting a bit tatty as well. And if the underground thing opens there in the near future I'd imagine it will ruin it.

rebel10

From Cork, but must say I actually quite like parts of Dublin. I love the mix of architecture and the fact that you can almost trace our past through the tenement houses, Georgian/Victorian buildings and of course the modern buildings of our "wealthy" period.
Sometimes I feel like there isin't a huge effort to keep the city looking its best. I don't think Dubliners take as much pride in their city as many other city dwellers do.
I was talking to an American student last week who was over for a short break while studying in England. He remarked that he found Dublin to be quite souless, the people less friendly than elsewhere in the country and that he ended up finding his two day stay there boring as he had ran out of things to visit. I think Bord Failte, the Government or whoever else is in charge of tourism here need to make a much greater effort in the Capital.

Brussels Sprout

I wasn't overfamiliar with Dublin in the past having only gone up there to go to the odd gig or to the zoo when I was a kid but over the past few months I've had to go up there every 2-3 weekends.

All in all I think it's a very unpleasant city. It's drab, grey and dirty. There's a lack of greenery in the city centre and O' Connell street seems to populated mostly by fast food outlets, mini markets and tacky tourist shops. It seems to me that a substantial amount of the allure of Dublin appears to be based around it's nightlife and drinking establishments with the result that there's not a whole pile out there for non drinkers.

In terms of architecture and general feel I think that Cork is a lot more charming as a city even though it's not really a fair comparison given the disparity in sizes between the two.

There seems to be a massive problem as well with gypsies, junkies and tramps. This gives certain parts of the city centre a very unpleasant and intimidating feel. Auckland in New Zealand is a city with a similar population to Dublin but it doesn't appear to have any of these kind of characters and as a result is a far more pleasant city centre to visit.

david75

In fairness, Auckland is also thousands and thousands of miles away from anywhere and hardly has access points for the factions you mentioned.

Dublin is a really green city from the air, i do agree the people and the local authority dont do enough to spruce it up(and when they do scaldies&stag parties usually ruin it) and impose better planning on signage etc (the dreaded 'how many spars/centras do we really need? debate) but things like the countless 'Bag shops', Carrolls of Dublin, etc they're there for the tourists and feeding off that but they're also a terrible blight on the city centre.

Compulsory purchase order the lot and offer the space to high end European/US retailers. They do it with IT investment so why not retail?

Dublin's just a bit scruffy. it has some beautiful spots as well it has to be said.

Blisterman

Is the solution really to fill Dublin with the same shops they have in every other city in the world? Surely they should be encouraging indiginous retailers.

david75

Well we're allowing Tesco to wipe out every independent retailer in the country by voting with our feet it seems, so why not?

Talisman

If you raise your eyes above the street level there are actually quite a few beautiful buildings in Dublin.

Dublin's biggest problem for its size is the volume of traffic - the car is king in a city where everything is within walking distance! I find it hilarious that Westmoreland street has four lanes of traffic and it's one way, you'd swear it was Manhattan looking across at the Westin hotel. O'Connell bridge can handle four lanes of traffic, then O'Connell street only has two! Pedestrians are almost tripping over each other crossing the bridge.

The pollution that cars create makes the whole city grimey. If cars were banned from the city centre it would make for a better experience for people and also improve the air quality.

Areas such as Parnell Square could also be much improved.