Urban Institute Ireland Working Papers

Recent development patterns have seen the urban region of Dublin evolve from a compact urban form towards a dispersed development pattern assisted by a shift in service-sector employment. In particular, this paper examines the movement of the office sector towards a number of suburban locations over the period from 1960 to 2008. It outlines the manner in which the geographic location of office development in Dublin has been transformed over recent years from one which focused primarily on a single dominant core from the 1960s until the 1980s, towards one in which numerous and widely-spread suburban sites tended to account for a growing proportion of new developments during the 1990s and early 2000s. The implications of this emerging pattern are of significant importance to the long term development of the region.

Between 1990 and 2006, the Dublin Region was amongst the most rapidly growing urban areas in Europe. The increase in population and industry presents particular challenges for spatial planning. The aim of the Urban Environment Project (UEP, www.uep.ie) is to provide spatial data and forecasts of future land-use patterns by using dynamic urban modelling which will underpin the development of decision-support tools for planners and policy-makers. For this study, we are using UEP landcover datasets to specifically address the question of what changes in urban green space (GS) occurred over a period of rapid growth (1990 – 2006). GS provides many functions within a city, ranging from the biotic (habitat provision, corridors of dispersal, reservoir populations) to the abiotic (storm water control, carbon sequestration, temperature regulation, increased property values). Over the study period (1990 – 2006) artificial urban surfaces have increased by 30% (by 8926 ha). Although the overall percentage of GS to built fabric stayed roughly constant over time (at about 23%), the losses and gains of GS were not evenly distributed throughout the city. GS was mainly lost near the city centre, where it converted to built areas. The GS gained was at the perimeter of the city to the detriment of agricultural land and semi-natural vegetation types. The result is a net loss of vegetated surfaces both within and outside the city. We discuss the possible implications of these changes in Dublin’s GS.