Irish Examiner view: Future Cork policy must be matched by delivery

Ahead of Friday's event hosted by the 'Irish Examiner', and the accompanying supplement in print and online, we pause to ask where we're going — and how we're going to get there

A visualisation of the Anglesea Terrace LDA development approved last October by Cork City Council — just one of a host of public realm and private developments in the pipeline for Cork. File picture

Cork is Ireland’s second city, but it is far more than that. It is the economic engine of the southern region and, after Dublin, the State’s most consequential urban centre. 

National policy is explicit: Cork is to be the counterbalance to the capital, with the most ambitious growth targets in the country. By 2040, its population is set to increase by 50%. That scale of expansion will require 75,000 new jobs, thousands of new homes, and world-class transport, health, social, and cultural infrastructure. It is bold. It must be.