Fatima Mansions demolished
But he warned it was not possible to know from the outset how a neighbourhood would turn out, and he said ultimate responsibility lay with residents to shape their own community.
Mr Ahern was speaking at the demolition of the Fatima Mansions flats complex in Dublin which is to be replaced with new local authority homes and support services for existing tenants as well as private apartments and retail units for the wider public.
The €130 million regeneration project is planned and funded under a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme where private developers share the costs of building and infrastructure in return for being able to sell about half the 500 new homes on the private market.
The aim is to reduce the financial burden on the Exchequer of what would otherwise be a prohibitively costly project and to prevent the area becoming a ghetto once again by ensuring a good social mix of occupants.
A masterplan is in place and yesterday marked the first phase of the redevelopment, but there are still private partners to be found and contracts to be finalised. The minister said the final hurdle would be to convince private buyers to come and live in an area tainted with decades of social problems.
"That is a problem. We can only try to put in the investment and work with the people, but a lot depends on the people. It's easy enough to get a developer to build houses but people have to make it a community themselves," he said.
A previous attempt at ridding the area of its poor image through refurbishment in the 1980s failed, but Mr Ahern said he was confident the complete dismantling of the complex would succeed this time.
"We have learned from the mistakes of the past," he said. "I don't want to criticise anyone. Everybody worked from the basis that they believed best served people's needs, but the design of social housing was not always great.
"It is very hard to see into the future. Back entries and back lanes were the demand of every housewife 30 years ago and now councils are extinguishing these rights of way because they're used for anti-social behaviour. But there is more awareness now about building communities, not just physical structures," he said.
A number of other major urban regeneration projects are under way around the country.
* In Galway, the Rahoon flats have been demolished and replaced with 276 homes at a cost of €15m.
* In Cork, three of the six Blackpool flat blocks have been demolished, the Glen flats are being refurbished and €13m is being spent on 47 new units in the area.
* In Dublin, the 28 Ballymun towers are being demolished and a new town capable of sustaining 30,000 people is being built. There are also regeneration programmes planned for St Michael's Estate, Inchicore and O'Devaney Gardens, North Circular Road.
Director of Housing with Galway City Council, Ciaran Hayes, said the revamp at Rahoon, also carried out under a PPP, had been a great success.
"When we began working on this site, we had two options either to renovate the existing units at £50,000 each, or totally redevelop the site. We chose the latter and developed 276 new units at a cost per unit of just £54,000 each.
"We once had a huge concentration of marginalised people. We now have a mix of local authority housing, social and affordable homes, as well as 12 houses which are managed by voluntary agencies and two homes which went to the Simon Community," he said.
In Cork, the Blackpool Flats complex has also taken on new life. Three of the six, five-storey blocks have been demolished and a fourth has been redeveloped and scaled down, according to Paul Moynihan, senior executive officer at the city council's housing department.
The new site includes 50 units for elderly people, as well as a day centre and 12 family units. The square within the remaining blocks is also being redeveloped and it is hoped the project will be complete within the next 18 months.
Elsewhere in the city, The Glen flats are being refurbished and 47 new units are being redeveloped at a cost of €18m.
