Gardens are costing us dearly; so could we do more with them, asks Marc Coleman
A garden is a lovesome thing. But like the appendix in our bodies, it is a thing we may no longer need. For centuries, gardens were the preserve of the very rich. When industrialisation came in the 19th century the habit of living in mass housing estates began. Like the Model T car a half century later, Victorians did for houses what Henry Ford did for cars. Georgian tenements had discredited the idea of different people living in the same building so Victorians decided that, henceforth, people would live in houses, and houses with gardens at that. For the working classes, gardens would provide enough land to grow vegetables for the family. Further up the social scale, gardens would give the middle classes social status and space for their children to play. The working class and middle class housing estates were born.
Less class conscious, the Continentals took a much smarter route. Instead of turning away from the idea of apartments, they stuck to it but built much better ones. Families needing to feed themselves were served by thriving markets in most villages and towns, a wonderful feature of Continental life sadly absent from our own. For places to play, small but well designed amenity parks were sprinkled liberally between blocks of well built apartments. And as for social status, Continentals were and remain mostly immune to the neurosis of class distinction, a neurosis that in this country and the UK poisons everything from the education system to the property market.
The result is denser, but still comfortable, living spaces in most Continental cities: somewhere between the village sprawl of Dublin and the claustrophobia of New York, cities like Rome, Madrid and Berlin have struck a compromise between shoe-box living and pretending to be a landowner. Are the Continentals wrong? In one way, the question is immaterial. Each civilisation chooses its own norm of living. But let's examine reasons why they just might be right. Even if it's not a reason for us to abandon gardens, it might improve the way we plan them.
Given the cost of land in any Irish town - not to mention Irish weather - the usual case for a garden (the freedom to sit, lie out or sunbathe in privacy) is redundant: anyone who has enough planning permission to sell their garden and realise its value would fund a private beach on the Mediterranean. A better reason to have a garden is that for more than few weeks - a few months perhaps - it is somewhere for dining outside.
But for this you need a few square metres, not a tennis court. Of course the most important reason for gardens comes as families grow. Even Continentals realise this, which is why when you travel a few kilometres from the centre of most Continental towns - driving past well built apartments full of singles or young couples en route - you eventually come to houses and gardens. But they are different from ours. In many cases, two families comfortably share one large and well built multi-storey house - and one garden - between them. The result is that housing affordability for young people is not an issue in most Continental countries (or if it is, this is due to high unemployment and not urban planning).
Although unintended, the contribution by size of gardens in this country to the inability of young people to afford property is vast. If each garden in Dublin was reduced by one-third, tens of thousands of new houses could be built. In reality, this mewsification of our back gardens would be impracticable. But there is another solution. By increasing even modestly the extent to which those owning gardens can extend their properties out back - even adding a storey - houses fit for one family could be converted into Continental two-family houses. The increase in capacity would be more than enough to accommodate young people who want to live in the city (it would also help preserve construction employment). Could it happen? The words "snowball" and "hell" spring to mind.
• Marc Coleman is Economics Editor of The Irish Times
