We need 50,000 new homes and nobody wants them in their backyard. Maybe the best solution is to build a new city?

If this were a realistic idea, where would it make sense to plonk a new city? Or what small towns could be rapidly expanded?

Edit:

Ok there are too many comments to read, I have other things to do!

Consensus is:

  1. Athlone should be expanded into a city
  2. We’ve all watched the TOD video about Limerick Junction
  3. Build up and add trams.
  4. Milton Keynes is a shithole so don’t do that (even though I like Milton Keynes?)

I’d say we have it sorted, lads. Bang on. Sound bunch.

by MrSmidge17

38 comments

  1. West Side of the m1 massive amount of empty space, unfarmed sitting there. Use that.

  2. Maybe somewhere north of the midlands? Level it out somewhat.

  3. They better build it quick because we have to build another 50k capacity city the following year and every year after that.

    I for one welcome Ireland turning into Coruscant.

  4. Limerick Junction. It’s crazy that there is a location which is so well connected by rail lines and it’s not even in a town.

  5. Near knock airport, new citys should be built around existing infrastructure.

    Already has good roads to the east ( Dublin N5), west (Westport N5) and south (Galway / Limerick M17) with plans of a new road to Sligo (Knock airport and Collooney) and the N5 Ballaghaderreen to Scramoge soon to commence.

    It is also close enough to link up existing train line (western rail corridor).

  7. The Polysee channel on YouTube is very hit and miss with their stuff (particularly recently) but they had good early videos about Transport Orientated Development and suggested a few spots where infrastructure already exists. Another commenter mentioned Limerick Junction, which was one of the sites.

  9. The Cork docklands project is actually kind of close to this idea no? Pretty huge expansion and somewhat high housing density.

  10. Limerick junction is actually a great idea if we ever sorted out proper high speed rail…

    25mins to Cork like

  11. Just don’t give the contracts to Irish builders – bring in the Koreans and they’ll whip up a new city in a couple of years

  12. Farranfore Co. Kerry. Has an airport and Train station. Easily links to Cork and Limerick. And rest of Kerry at your doorstep

  13. thurles could expand byut needs a ring road first, athlone, ,waterford if kk would stop messing us about and hand over the land for development to the city

  15. A lot of people mentioning Limerick Junction. Interesting that it hasn’t organically expanded over the years. If the transport links are so great, then why hasn’t anyone built housing and facilities there and marketeted them to commuters?

  16. Expand the Midlands Gateway Project by merging the three towns, Mullingar, Athlone, Tullamore into a metropolis!

    Other than that, Leitrim is basically empty if anyone can find it.

  19. Drogheda is expanding massively at the moment and it’s very close to there not being a noticeable gap between it and the villages of Laytown & Bettystown. And the residents are pushing for it to be given city status

  20. All you need to do is invest in Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Kilkenny and avoid making the mistakes that were made in Dublin.

  21. “I’m not sure I agree with this idea. I think it would be far better to build up and out in the cities that already exist, as opposed to starting from scratch. Whats the benefit for starting new cities?

  22. Athlone!  Build a new
    Airport and highspeed  train network  linking each county new roads etc. you could get from there to anywhere in Ireland in just over an hour.  

    Enough room to build a city for two or three million people. 

  24. Always thought Longford town would be a good idea to expand. Cheap land, low population and within a few hours drive of most parts of the country. Already has a train line and has large roads near it. Near enough to Dublin and Knock Airport too. I don’t think it would have a lot of objections either because there’s so little there.

  25. I’m biased because I’m from south Meath but there should be a major settlement built between Ratoath and Ashbourne.

    There’s already a decent motorway link, the M2, and scope to build out good free flowing junctions north of exit 3. From there, the M50 is less than 10 minutes away. It’s close to the airport, it’s within an hour’s drive of both the border and already has two towns of 10-15,000 people in the area.

    The terminus of the DART will be within 8km of this in the next few years after DART+ is completed, so extending it to this site wouldn’t be an enormous undertaking and give this place widespread access to the DART, Luas and hopefully Metrolink over time.

    What’s more, it has a potentially massive theme park in the making (Emerald Park, the artist formerly known as Tayto Park) and they could subsidise a DART extension there in time, which could be a game changer in terms of the place as a tourism destination.

    There’s plenty of flat, featureless land between Ashbourne and Ratoath that doesn’t flood and existing communities that can link up together. There’s a surprisingly high number of existing solar farms in the area with potential for more. And two existing anchor communities so it’s not starting from scratch. Essentially like how D15 expanded in the 70s and 80s in between what were separate villages.

  30. Athlone given its location near the middle of the country offers great potential. You have the Hudson bay area as well. Links to motorway. Can easily travel between Galway and Dublin linking all up. It almost makes too much sense 😂

  31. Expand Athlone to a major city, put metro systems in before you build out, even if it’s building a set of underground tunnels out to empty land, it’s at least future proofing, and if that land gets developed, all you need is lay the lines and put electrics in, but no overground disruptions.

  34. We have no cities in the ROI in Ulster. NI has 6. Border counties were left to rot by the Dáil for decades and the railway lines all fell into disrepair.

    Investment into restoring the rail line from Dublin to Letterkenny through Monaghan would allow both to grow organically. Then pump a load of money into Monaghan and it’d boom. Great central location with strong links to both Dublin and NI. Houses would be snapped up as South Monaghan has already basically become a commuter town to Dublin.

    Also, train from Derry to Letterkenny and Cavan – Clones – Monaghan while we’re at it.

    Edit: This map of our rail lines highlights perfectly what I’m talking about.

    https://preview.redd.it/hyedn7uyjwad1.jpeg?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2756ddef161204f6a02612215092587890afc514

  35. Cities are extremely complex so it’s much easier to just expand our current cities.

    Limerick and Cork in particular have plenty of land available to build housing.
    They already have everything needed to expand like Airport, Port, Motorway, Rail, University, Industry etc…

    I think Limerick could grow very quickly in the next decades as it’s quite central.

  38. Carlow and a new airport and prison. An hour from Dublin and loads of cheap land and judging by the amount of direct provision centres loads of cheap labour. Be handy to get to from for Laois Kilkenny Wexford Waterford Limerick Wicklow Meath and Kildare. 

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