David Connolly, Director, Dublin Inner City Partnership.
 
Presentation on : BUILDING AN INCLUSIVE CITY (Page 1)
 
Introduction.
 
We need to change what we are doing with this city, how we are organised as citizens, how we distribute the wealth generated and how we manage our own affairs in our own city.
 
I have taken as a theme for my paper the proposition that building an inclusive city is a possibility in the situation where Dublin doubles in size over the next two decades. I would consider that it is imperative that we achieve fundamental change in the living conditions, income, quality of life and life opportunities for a large section of our citizens who remain outside of the benefits of the economic boom.
 
I think it is fairly safe to say here that the principal thrust of this conference and of the people participating is mainly concerned about developing a city that is inclusive of all of the citizens. However it is important at the outset to state this as an assumption because it is not necessarily the priority for many of those who control or influence development in this city.
 
There are a whole range of objectives and interests operating in this urban environment. There are also powerful forces both local and global determining the future use and direction of the city who are not subject to the control or influence of the residents of Dublin. This is one of the main dilemmas facing the public policy makers and local community interests whom would wish to intervene in a situation where market forces are being allowed to set the development agenda. In recent years much of the state intervention in urban renewal has been aimed at facilitating private developers. I believe that this is detrimental to our future interests as residents of the city and this approach needs to be reversed urgently.
 
It is often portrayed these days that the requirement to tackle poverty and deprivation in Dublin is now small scale and manageable requiring the minimum transfer of resources. This is based on the fact that so many people have entered employment in the past four years that the previous crisis is now solved. However this is not the situation and I want to suggest that this issue remains central to how we develop Dublin city in the next period. In reality we are talking about a significant number of the population effected by low income and an unacceptable and inadequate standard of living and for whom obtaining employment in low wage and insecure jobs has not altered their situation.
 
The challenge now to be addressed is whether the potential expansion of the city can be used to effect a fundamental shift in how the city is organised on a social and economic basis in order to serve the interests of all of the citizens in the future.
 
Priority areas for consideration.
 
In this paper I want to examine three key areas related to building an inclusive city. Firstly, seeking to address the large scale disadvantage effecting a significant portion of the city; secondly, tackling the extreme poverty and deprivation concentrated in specific locations and among particular sections of the population; and thirdly, examining the relevance of the social and political organisation structures that we have adopted in the city. In addition to these central concerns it is necessary also to understand the likely impact of globalisation on the city in terms of future work, increased migration in to Dublin and the potential provided by the use of information technology and digital development
 
In proposing solutions I suggest that we need to tackle a number of key issues in order to resolve the present problems. These include altering the physical structure of the city to improve living conditions, somehow adjusting income distribution to remove the concentrations of wealth and poverty, significantly increasing and targeting public investment to reverse decades of neglect in certain areas, seeking to provide for a quality of life for all residents based on the provision of new social and economic rights, and as a city in the longer term seeking to guarantee equal access to opportunities for income, education, leisure and personal development. If these issues are addressed seriously I believe that we can effect fundamental change in the future shape of the city. However this objective requires that we as residents of the city secure more direct control of the development and management of the city away from central control by the national state. We have to develop and implement policies and approached suited to the needs of the city and capable of being funded from our own resources.
 
In highlighting the issues to be addressed it should be acknowledged that significant strides have been made at a local level by the community and voluntary sector working in partnership with the statutory sector and social partners; and at a regional level by the refocusing and restructuring of the statutory agencies to respond to new needs emerging in the city. This partnership approach has been successful In tackling many of the problems arising from the rapid growth and expansion of the city and from the crisis presented by long term unemployment and heroin abuse. This is despite the constant struggle to secure the resources and policies from central government proportionate to the scale of need encountered in Dublin in recent years.
 
However, I would suggest that while we have achieved this positive impact at a local level we have failed to come to terms with the size and complexity of the total city and with the need to develop more innovative responses and organisation structures suitable to the Dublin city we now reside in. This requires a mind shift and an imaginative leap not yet taken. When looking at the city from this perspective I do not mean at a macro level but rather in relation to local development needs. If you view the city on a wider basis the tendency is to only see infrastructural issues such as transport, physical planning and population trends rather than identifiying with more human/ or person based needs and responses that arise at a neighbourhood level.
 
The city without the people means nothing. It should not be made available to those who seek solely for profit, it can not be left to market forces to determine the shape and use of the city, the future expansion of the city should not be left to developers and professionals, the social and political organisation of the city should be placed in the hands of the citizens and the resources necessary to deal with our own requirements must be controlled within the city. In advocating change it is vital that we understand the needs to be met, the potential for improvement and the central imperative that the predominance of the interests of the residents must be the primary objective in the future growth of the city.