The centre of Dublin has been transformed over the past decade to a degree that would have been unimaginable in the mid-1980s when it was scarred by swathes of dereliction. Sites that could be bought then for a song are fetching millions per acre today, for office blocks, hotels and apartment buildings.
But despite the new development and the ubiquitous tower cranes, there is a sense that something is missing: a coherent, long-term planning strategy to knit together this new Dublin in the making.
That was the view expressed by urban design expert Dr Patrick Malone in a stimulating lecture this week to the Forum for Irish Urban Studies at TCD. Apart from highlighting what he saw as "great confusion" about the scale and density of new buildings and the expediency and profit-taking that seem to drive so much development, he talked about the need to "break down lumps...and improve links" by strengthening the basic network of streets, making them much more pleasant for pedestrians. Having spent a weekend walking around the inner city, he concluded that "the general level of comfort in the streets is pretty low" compared to other European cities such as Lyon or Turin, with which Dublin is inevitably competing for inward investment.
Few Dubliners who walk or cycle would disagree with his assessment. As Dr Malone said, "other than war, few things can match the car as a source of disruption, discomfort, nuisance, and erosion. We only have to look at old photos of cities to understand the impact of the car. It has changed the relationship between people and cities to an extent that it would be difficult to exaggerate. The car makes us feel like children in a playground full of bullies". Numerous other cities have recognised this by taking measures to restrict, and even suppress, the dominance of traffic in their historic cores. All Dublin has done in the past five years has been to build two new pedestrian bridges, install the Liffey Boardwalk and widen the footpaths in O'Connell Street.
It is unlikely that Dr Malone's "ruthless suppression of the car" advice will be adopted by the traffic authorities here. Yet there are obvious opportunities to enhance the urban environment consequent on the removal of up to 2,000 trucks per day from the Liffey Quays, when the port tunnel finally opens later this year, and the very belated plan to link the two Luas lines in the city centre. College Green is Dublin's great architectural set-piece. If trams run through it, as now seems more than likely, intolerable levels of traffic would be considerably reduced and the place would become congenial once again for citizens and visitors alike. That is a prize worth winning.