Careful planning and bold vision can put Cork on a journey as a city of the future

Being eco-friendly is not limited to rural areas, writes Pádraig Hoare.

Friends enjoy a summer afternoon at a park on the bank of the Guadalquivir river near the bridge of Triana in Seville.

When the same cities across Europe pop up as some of the best places on the planet to live, it would be tempting to think it was happenstance and good fortune that smiled upon them as they became bastions of sustainable and good living.

Seville in southern Spain, the Danish capital of Copenhagen, Groningen in the Netherlands, Porto in northern Portugal — the list goes on.