2 year action plan to revive the city centre

pwurple

weadick wrote: »

It's the only city in Europe with a declining population. There are good reasons for that. Cleaning statues and fixing lights won't change that.

Vancouver has the same crime and drugs problems every city has, the only difference is that they manage their problems more effectively than us.

Vancouver is also the most boring city on the planet.
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/05/vancouver-mind-numbingly-boring-city-economist/

Declining population has a lot to do with the city boundaries as well. Douglas isn't considered part of the city for example, and the population there is rocketting.

I agree there should be more done to address the vacant units in the city. I hate seeing boarded up space above shops where people could happily live. There are some beautiful buildings around, that would make fantastic city center accommodation, but the fact is, it's been made painfully difficult to be a landlord anymore. You'd want to be off your head to take it on, so people don't. Tenants can completely destroy your building, pay no rent for a year, and you have no come-back and can't even claim all the mortgage interest as an expense. What looper would 'invest' in that sector anymore? Landlords are an aging group at the moment. People in their 70's doing a pokey bit of DIY because it makes no financial sense to do any proper upkeep. So they fall to ruin when the old landlord dies, and the people who inherit them don't want to take on the hassle anymore.

CHealy

hoodwinked wrote: »

thats not what i am saying at all, i am saying the city rather than worrying about street art, or spending €16,000 on a statue should start with giving the city a safer feel, if they want to attract shoppers and families back to the city center they need to offer what the suburbs offer, safety (and maybe free parking :P )

offer them the ability to walk down patrick street without being hassled by beggers/junkies/needles/blood stains, make these things almost non - existent on our main street (or at least as best they can as these things will happen on occasion. it's just these "occasions" are becoming far too frequent)

a solution would be spend some more money on gardaí, where there is a visible garda presence people will perceive it as "safer" cork has always been about its laneways, make those safe to walk down again. but start with patrick street.

i'm saying make the city safer and a lot more people will return to it.

All of that is fine and you are more than entitled to have your opinion based off your own experiences, but clearing a few junkies off the streets won't make a bit of difference. And I think the city is doing ok as it, with obviously alot more to do. I went for a few drinks on Friday night with the missues and town was buzzing, we had a fantastic night. I went in for a look around on Saturday at about 4 and the place was jammers. We don't have it too bad at all.

SpaceTime

I think the issue with accommodation here is a national and cultural one. If you want decent apartments you have to allow businesses, organised groups of long term investors eg pension funds etc to buy and manage entire complexes.

Ireland and Britain tend to rely on small time individual micro speculating landlords who don't really have the ability or the resources to properly manage a complex and you end up with a total mess and poor shared services, lack of maintenance, no permanent staff in apartment complexes (the norm on the continent in larger complexes - you'd at least have a caretaker of not a concierge).

That's not a Cork specific issue.

If we think the buy to let model is a way of providing good qualify accommodation we're kidding ourselves!

We need to have places people can comfortably rent (unfurnished) as places to actually live not just rent for a year while planning their next move.

Subpopulus

namloc1980 wrote: »

I would love to see stats on that! Only City in Europe with declining population....really?

No, not really. The population of the city council area has fallen slowly from a mid-seventies peak of 138,000 to about 190,000 now. The reason for this is that the city's boundary is drawn so tight around the city - the younger people with larger families mostly live beyond the bounds of the city council area, while older people living in ones and twos are left inside the boundary.

Also, there are many cities in Europe with declining populations. Mostly in Easter Europe, places like Budapest, Riga and Vilnius, but interestingly cities like Berlin, Rome and Madrid are experiencing the same effect as Cork, though they're marginally on the growth side.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/06/23/map-where-europe-is-growing-and-where-it-is-shrinking/

The CSO gives the contiguous population of the city as 198,000 people (i.e., including the built-up areas beyond the city boundary), so Weadick's assertion that this is the only city in Europe with a declining population is nonsense.

cgcsb

namloc1980 wrote: »

How has the transport situation "rapidly declined"? In the last few years we have Realtime info online and at bus stops. Also have Leap Card and expanded bus services. Now not saying it's great as the transport situation leaves alot to be desired but we should give credit where it's due and not blow things out of proportion.

"rapidly declined" as in traffic has worsened and bus journey times have lengthened. There have been little no improvements to Cork's bus system and Cork continues trending towards car dependence.

namloc1980

hoodwinked wrote: »

thats not what i am saying at all, i am saying the city rather than worrying about street art, or spending €16,000 on a statue should start with giving the city a safer feel, if they want to attract shoppers and families back to the city center they need to offer what the suburbs offer, safety (and maybe free parking :P )

offer them the ability to walk down patrick street without being hassled by beggers/junkies/needles/blood stains, make these things almost non - existent on our main street (or at least as best they can as these things will happen on occasion. it's just these "occasions" are becoming far too frequent)

a solution would be spend some more money on gardaí, where there is a visible garda presence people will perceive it as "safer" cork has always been about its laneways, make those safe to walk down again. but start with patrick street.

i'm saying make the city safer and a lot more people will return to it.

I honestly don't see the things you appear to be seeing on Patrick Street. Maybe I'm blind or something but I have never seen a needle on Patrick St or oceans of blood or even many junkies or beggars apart from rare occasions. Cork has a very safe feeling about it. Honestly if you feel threatened or intimidated walking around Patrick St you should probably lock yourself into your house 24/7.

SpaceTime

cgcsb wrote: »

"rapidly declined" as in traffic has worsened and bus journey times have lengthened. There have been little no improvements to Cork's bus system and Cork continues trending towards car dependence.

Again talk to our masters in Dublin who regularly throw Cork, Limerick and Galway into the same category as Tralee or Dingle when planning.

Ireland's government thinks of "the city" and "down the country" and it's blatantly obvious in things like public transport provision. The services in Cork are very poor for an urban area of about 300,000.

They've improved a bit but they need really to be operated by a Cork Transit Authority or at least a Cork branch of the NTA.

CIE lives up to the term Cycling Is Easier in Cork anyway!

I'd rather see a local transit authority / NTA Cork operating a brand like "CATS" (Cork Area Transit Scheme) with fully branded up busses, trains and tying in the bike scheme and Leap and all that.

It's not a country village which seems to be how Bus Éireann treats it.

In most of the world public transport is very much a function of local government in cities. Not some remote transit authority like CIE.

SpaceTime

namloc1980 wrote: »

I honestly don't see the things you appear to be seeing on Patrick Street. Maybe I'm blind or something but I have never seen a needle on Patrick St or oceans of blood or even many junkies or beggars apart from rare occasions. Cork has a very safe feeling about it. Honestly if you feel threatened or intimidated walking around Patrick St you should probably lock yourself into your house 24/7.

Any chance the "blood stains" are coffee or ketchup ?
I definitely see a lot of that.

namloc1980

cgcsb wrote: »

"rapidly declined" as in traffic has worsened and bus journey times have lengthened. There have been little no improvements to Cork's bus system and Cork continues trending towards car dependence.

Have they really though? I remember taking the bus to school 20 years ago and the journey took forever. Also Cork had always been car focussed, it's not a recent trend or anything.

SpaceTime

I'm off to enjoy the city centre, get some lunch, have a haircut, maybe go for a cycle and pick up some food in the English Market for dinner and maybe have a totally unharassed coffee outside with a laptop open...

The horrors of living in a small, relatively safe city!

namloc1980

SpaceTime wrote: »

I'm off to enjoy the city centre, get some lunch, have a haircut, maybe go for a cycle and pick up some food in the English Market for dinner and maybe have a totally unharassed coffee outside with a laptop open...

The horrors of living in a small, relatively safe city!

Be careful of the dangers out there now! I'm off for a stroll to the Library and grab some lunch. Wish me luck!!

CHealy

Watch the needles.

SpaceTime

I'd add : I lost my wallet in the city centre a few weeks ago with about €200 cash, all my cards etc inside...

My phone rang. A totally normal, friendly guy found it and contacted a number for my gym membership card.

Their receptionist rang me, he arranged to meet me with my totally unstolen wallet.

I insisted on giving him a voucher for lunch somewhere decent (happened to have an Orso voucher in the wallet). He refused several times saying anyone would do the same.

Cork's such an uncivilised place!

SpaceTime

namloc1980 wrote: »

Be careful of the dangers out there now! I'm off for a stroll to the Library and grab some lunch. Wish me luck!!

Those urban, downtown books are very sharp! Be carful!!

lostinsuperfunk

I actually think the city centre has better road access and parking than Wilton, or horror of horrors, Mahon Point. Mahon in particular has terrible traffic problems. Wilton is better for road access, but worse for parking and always is congested on its own internal roads. Add in the fact that there's nowhere decent to eat in either centre, very little public transport (Mahon in particular again), nowhere at all to buy fresh food in Mahon (sorry, nothing in Tesco can be considered "fresh"), no interesting shops in either centre, the city centre wins hands down.

Sit in my stationary car on the N40 exit ramp, waiting to shove a KFC in my gullet surrounded by plastic signage, or sit outside somewhere like the Roundy with a coffee and watch the world go by, junkies and all? No contest.

SpaceTime

I would agree at peak times Mahon is very awkward for parking as it gets too busy.

The city centre is quite good if you just park on one of the non absolutely central car parks. Some people seem to think they have to park in Merchants Quay or Paul St.

There are several good alternatives a short walk from Patrick's street.

I think the multi-stories are definitely overpriced though.

Bacchus

I'm going add my voice to the "Cork is lovely" brigade (I walk through town every day on way to/from work) and am usually in at weekends. There has been an increase in homelessness alright and I find the teenagers that gather around Patrick St. on Saturdays a bit intimidating (not for me personally but it's not pleasant). Other than that though, there's nothing really dangerous about Cork at all. If you go looking for trouble, you'll find it, just like in any city but I've only ever once come across any violence (saw two fellas laying into a guy on Barrack Street a few years back) and I've certainly not seen these needles that are "literally everywhere".

On topic, the proposals in that article are positive. They are not perfect and there'll always be a few moaning they should be doing X, Y or Z instead but if they do all they have promised in 2 years, it'll be great.

whisky_galore

The only reason teens hang around is there is very little for them to do, they won't be left into many pubs and there's only so much shopping they can do. So 'hanging around' is the default mode, unless you send them to a work camp or something.

SpaceTime

Dublin quite literally died for a while which is why they've so many junkie issues in the city centre.

For a period Dublin city centre was being largely abandoned, especially the northern part of the city centre but also areas around Christchurch etc etc.

What was a bustling, living city was basically let rot until urban renewal ideas kicked in in the 1990s and it's still suffering badly from that era.

I am a Dub who has lived in Cork for a long time and I've lived plenty of other places too.

I genuinely do think that as a city centre Cork works better because it's much more squeezed together and it wasn't messed up as badly as Dublin by very poor planning and hatred of all things urban or old that occurred in the middle 20th century in Dublin.

That was followed by a heroine crisis that has done immense damage. What happened to Dublin is very sad as it was and still is in spots a really nice, bustling, busy vibrant place with real communities and a lot of history.

Similar happened in Glasgow and also in Brussels to name but a few other spots.

Cork hasn't ever reached anything approaching that state and I think the fact that people are driving to keep the city centre vibrant and relevant is really important and a good sign of a functioning urban space.

Ireland has a history of an attitude that city = vice = bad.

That attitude has to change and I think some posters on this thread are completely exhadurating social problems in Cork.

It's a good working city, not a theme park.

SpaceTime

whisky_galore wrote: »

The only reason teens hang around is there is very little for them to do, they won't be left into many pubs and there's only so much shopping they can do. So 'hanging around' is the default mode, unless you send them to a work camp or something.

Teens are also ridiculously feared. Most of them are just basically "playing" and actually using the city centre which is a very important thing!

I hate this attitude that spaces aren't to be used by teenagers.

We were all teenagers once!

What do people want exactly ?

A city centre that's a cold museum where only the over 65s wearing suits are allowed in and everything's behind velvet ropes?

Ludo

hoodwinked wrote: »

the easiest way to get people back into the city is being overlooked here, get rid of the junkies and those assaulting people!

the reason most of us won't go into town anymore is

a: the needles lying around everywhere, literally everywhere.

b: the threat of violence, attacks in the city are now happening during the day, the street cleaner who was attacked on a weekday morning a few weeks ago, the brawl on winthrop street on that saturday afternoon,


if people are being assaulted on patrick street the main bright and packed street why would they go near the smaller emptier side streets? or when they are stepping over blood stained footpaths or stepping over used needles, of course they are going to go to the suburbs where they have clean safe shopping, even in mahon point you'd often see security walking around moving on loitering groups gathering or messing about...etc it gives you a sense of being safe.

Bull****.

Straight Talker

hoodwinked wrote: »

the easiest way to get people back into the city is being overlooked here, get rid of the junkies and those assaulting people!

the reason most of us won't go into town anymore is

a: the needles lying around everywhere, literally everywhere.

b: the threat of violence, attacks in the city are now happening during the day, the street cleaner who was attacked on a weekday morning a few weeks ago, the brawl on winthrop street on that saturday afternoon,


if people are being assaulted on patrick street the main bright and packed street why would they go near the smaller emptier side streets? or when they are stepping over blood stained footpaths or stepping over used needles, of course they are going to go to the suburbs where they have clean safe shopping, even in mahon point you'd often see security walking around moving on loitering groups gathering or messing about...etc it gives you a sense of being safe.

I think Cork city centre is very safe.I was in Limerick recently and a gang of youths had a massive brawl outside the Arthurs Quay shopping centre at 3pm on a Friday afternoon.There was a glass bottle fired as well that missed my head by inches.I've never seen the likes of that happen in broad daylight in Cork or any other part of Ireland for that matter.In fact Cork is in much better nick when compared to everywhere else in Ireland outside Dublin.

Bacchus

whisky_galore wrote: »

The only reason teens hang around is there is very little for them to do, they won't be left into many pubs and there's only so much shopping they can do. So 'hanging around' is the default mode, unless you send them to a work camp or something.

SpaceTime wrote: »

Teens are also ridiculously feared. Most of them are just basically "playing" and actually using the city centre which is a very important thing!

I hate this attitude that spaces aren't to be used by teenagers.

We were all teenagers once!

What do people want exactly ?

A city centre that's a cold museum where only the over 65s wearing suits are allowed in and everything's behind velvet ropes?

Personally I don't fear them but they shout after people, follow closely behind them, throw random crap (yes, I was narrowly missed by a half full McDonalds drink once) at people. To them, it's just messing about, but to others it is intimidating, especially when they are in such large groups. While most of them mind their own business, there is quite a few that enjoy hassling passersby. I'm pretty sure there was a thread on this before in this forum after a group of teenagers were particularly nasty to some man.

Look, they're not a massive concern of mine, I was just highlighting them as the ONLY source of an intimidation in the city.

cgcsb

SpaceTime wrote: »

Again talk to our masters in Dublin who regularly throw Cork, Limerick and Galway into the same category as Tralee or Dingle when planning.

Cork City council has the power to implement bus priority schemes if it wishes to do so. Indeed the NTA is pushing them to do so. Cork City Council has even published a suitably vague paper about developing 'green routes'. Without any details or follow through. You can't really blame Cork City Council's incompetence on your 'masters in Dublin'

Your very own council voted down the proposed bus only measures on Patrick Street, you need to unseat these councillors who block Cork's progress.

SpaceTime

cgcsb wrote: »

Cork City council has the power to implement bus priority schemes if it wishes to do so. Indeed the NTA is pushing them to do so. Cork City Council has even published a suitably vague paper about developing 'green routes'. Without any details or follow through. You can't really blame Cork City Council's incompetence on your 'masters in Dublin'

Your very own council voted down the proposed bus only measures on Patrick Street, you need to unseat these councillors who block Cork's progress.

You can actually.

In most of the world the City Council would manage the routing and franchising of the system. In some places the council actually operates the busses and trams as a part of their remit as a local authority.

Ireland is very quick to blame lack of action on local government and on people's lack of interest in local elections but won't give them any accountable executive power.

If all the power is in central government, quangos like CIE, the NTA and now even Irish water etc and the local executive power is in the hands of a city manager, not the council what exactly do people expect to happen?

Poor planning, no direct accountability to the electorate and nobody engages properly in elections because, well they don't matter.

People in Ireland lobby government ministers and TDs about what are city and county issues!

You can be sure those green routes were contingent on the Dept of Transport, the whim of a minister and cooperation from the NTA, CIE and probably the NRA if they used national routes at all.

The whole system is whacko and all power here is centralised.

That's why we've bad planning. It's why we've had planning corruption too in the past in some places. Low engagement = power and accountability vacuum.

Carlos Orange

namloc1980 wrote: »

I would love to see stats on that! Only City in Europe with declining population....really?

Every city in Ireland seems to be declining based on this interactive guide to population growth in the EU (2001-2011).

http://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/europakarte/#11/52.6416/-8.3915/en

cgcsb

To the posters talking about 'needles everywhere' I think you're having a laugh. I've literally never seen one. In fact in Dublin, where I live right down the street from a meth clinic, i've only seen one, once. I don't think needles are discarded as carelessly as you imagine.

Also if you think Cork City Centre is 'dangerous'. I'd suggest you just lock yourselves in and never come out. There were 25 incidents of pick pocketing in Cork City in Quarter 1 this year. That's one in 8,000 persons living in the City.

Subpopulus

cgcsb wrote: »

Your very own council voted down the proposed bus only measures on Patrick Street, you need to unseat these councillors who block Cork's progress.

I wish people would stop going on about this as if the city councillors shot this down because they're a bunch of regressive car-centric loons. The St Patricks street bus gate was rejected because the traffic consultants proposed to redirect all the traffic into a largely residential area without putting in place anything much to mitigate against the effect increased amounts of traffic on pedestrians, cyclists and the residents. The proposals would also have extinguished a large amount of two-way routes that cyclists currently use, and replaced them with one-way lanes with no contra-flows. The Middle Parish would essentially have been encircled in a large one-way traffic gyratory - a very old-school bit of traffic engineering.

The traffic management scheme for the Middle Parish will have to go back to the drawing board, and hopefully the revised scheme won't be so injurious to the Middle Parish.

SpaceTime

Also bear in mind that many pick pocketing incidents are actually loss, reported by tourists for claims on travel insurance.

For example An American aquaintence of mine claimed she was pick pocketed on the train to Killarney.

She reported it to the Gardai and got an insurance payout. Someone found her wallet and passport under a seat in the train and sent both to the Gardai who reunited her with them.

I'm not saying for a moment she was a liar. She genuinely believed that she had been pickpocket.

It was largely because she'd read that pickpockets are active all over Europe and you have to be super careful.

All I'm saying is stats can be misleading. You're mostly at risk of pick pocketing in public transport where you're standing up / in crush capacity and where there are frequent stops where people can disappear - metros, trams etc..

whisky_galore

I haven't seen any needles, seen plenty pools of gawk on weekend nights or the morning after the night before though.