Rural towns hold some solutions to climate change
The housing crisis has rightly dominated the political landscape for the last number of years, with rising rents, rising house prices, and rising homelessness figures. And yet, all across the country, houses stand vacant or derelict along the main streets of our towns and villages.
As with much else in political and public life, the debate on rural Ireland versus urban Ireland tends to be simplified, polarised, and presented from the viewpoints of extremes.
It is framed as part of some manufactured culture war, often with the Greens typecast as pantomime villains, as though the only two options available were a mews in D4 or a cottage in Connemara. In reality, more than 780,000 people live in the 64 Irish towns with a population between 6,000 and 25,000 people — more than the cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford combined.
So, many of us live somewhere between the two extremes — from Tramore to Trim, Carrick-on-Suir to Carrick-on-Shannon — small and medium-sized towns with huge untapped potential. In losing the debate to those shouting from the extremes, we miss the opportunity to discuss that potential for our regional urban centres to form part of the solution to the many challenges we face as a society.
To give one example of where I believe Irish towns can make a powerful contribution, let’s look at the area of housing. The housing crisis has rightly dominated the political landscape for the last number of years, with rising rents, rising house prices and rising homelessness figures. And yet, all across the country, houses stand vacant or derelict along the main streets of our towns and villages.
There is any number of reasons for that, but these town-centre properties can and should present a huge opportunity. Firstly, they can be brought back into use more quickly than a new build. Secondly, refurbishing a house produces far fewer emissions than building from new, making it a much more climate-friendly solution. And thirdly, there’s a whole host of co-benefits that come with regenerating the centres of our towns and revitalising these traditional urban areas.
If many Irish town centres were left behind by the Celtic Tiger, that means that they’ve avoided the worst excesses of sprawl. They’ve remained compact, walkable, liveable and sustainable. Long before the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hildago, started talking about the “15-minute city”, Irish towns were ‘10-minute towns’. These are places where you can walk your kids to school for 8.50am and still be at your desk at 9am.
The changing world of work is increasingly allowing people to make the decision to relocate from our main cities. The trend towards remote and blended working was already happening, but the covid-19 pandemic greatly accelerated that process, forcing us all to take a step back and reassess how we live our lives. For those who could, it opened up the world of remote working, and many people grasped the opportunity to move ‘back home’, often to rural towns and villages.
And we’ve already experienced the many benefits — reduced commuting means more free time and less emissions, greater flexibility has seen more women enter the workforce than ever before, and local businesses have seen an uplift from people nipping out for a coffee or to pick up a few messages. That’s not only a very pleasant way to live, but it’s also a very sustainable way to live. Increasingly, the quality-of-life proposition offered by these towns is recognised by people choosing to relocate.
Revitalising our regional urban centres also unlocks better quality public services. When we invest in our towns and villages, we bring people back to their centres, meaning the amenities you need — the shops, the schools, the GP surgeries — are all nearby. Quality public services are a numbers game, and this is nowhere more evident than in the provision of public transport. When we revitalise our town centres, we build up the critical mass that will support and sustain the level of service that will make our rural transport services a realistic and viable option for people who want to leave their cars behind. The ultimate ambition should be an ‘Every Village, Every Hour’ level of service.
These regional urban centres can help tackle some of the democratic deficits that we see across Irish society too. Irish towns, at their best, fall in that Goldilocks landing zone of ‘not too big, not too small’, in a space where communities can make a real and tangible difference. They’re at the meeting point between individual action, which can feel too small to make a difference, and national policy, which can feel too far removed from our everyday lives. How we build or define those communities comes in all shapes and forms — the Tidy Towns, the GAA club, the school’s Parents Association.
When we revitalise our towns and villages, we build thriving local communities. In thriving communities, we can make a difference and feel the difference.
Our towns and villages have been in decline for decades. Policy direction from this government, from the Town Centres First policy to concrete measures like the Croí Cónaithe towns fund, has seen a reversal in their fortunes, and for the better. There are many problems for us to solve as a society, from housing to climate, but I’m firmly of the belief that the Irish town can be part of the solution.
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