Rosa Abbott-
Over the last couple of months, a quietly dedicated group of people have reviewed, interviewed, assessed and considered the streets of Dublin, and the people who walk them. Their reason and message is clear – “Love the City”.
This is all part of a new initiative called Designing Dublin, a project masterminded by the non-profit arts collective Design Twentyfirst Century (and made possible by the helping hands of many a volunteer).
You may wonder why Dublin needs an initiative to encourage people to fall back in love with it, but according to statistics, the number of people visiting and using our city centre is steadily declining – airport activity has almost halved since 2008, and it feels like what flights remain are outbound, with no scheduled return.
Either people are failing to find anything inspiring enough to entice them to get a bus in from the suburbs (or further afield), or they are flocking Ireland’s shores for good, hoping to find greener grass in London, New York or Australia. Whatever the reasons for Dublin’s dwindling numbers, the Council are keen to reverse the trend – and called upon Designing Dublin to help them do so.
Inspiring people to “love the city” again sounds like somewhat of a mammoth task though: surely one arts project, ran over the course of two months – no matter how effective it is – can single-handedly turn around the fortunes of a city on the brink of economic collapse. They do not have the resources to create huge new attractions, vast enough to prompt masses of tourists and suburb-dwellers alike come flooding through the streets again – especially given said masses’ reluctance or inability to whip out their credit cards as they once may have done. But this is largely missing the point in the eyes of Designing Dublin’s enthusiastic strategists: the attractions are all there, in their eyes; they just need to make people aware of them. “We’ve discovered that the only way to undertake that massive ask is by inspiring people to become re-aware of the city centre’s offerings and to help them flow through every experience with ease and delight so that they return again and again to discover more and more”, they assert.
Their most successful effort to raise “re-awareness” of the goods Dublin has to offer is their nifty map outlining ‘100 Exciting Things You Didn’t Know About the City Centre’, available in a snazzily designed but static format, or on Google Maps, so you can pinpoint exactly where the attractions are (and read an extra snippet of information if you click on them).
Some of these hidden gems are not so hidden, and will be very familiar to Trinity students: I don’t think many of us are unaware of the Rose Garden, and certainly not the Campanile – including the supposed curse the tolling of its bell is said to bestow. But from the beautiful (Blessington Basin) to the novel (apparently the Clock Bar has an aviary in its smoking area) to the practical (free STI screening in Saint James Hospital folks), the map chronicles many aspects of Dublin life that not everyone will be aware of. The truth is, it’s easy to put a city down, saying it has little to offer, but few of the people who do so will have truly tapped into the place’s potential. Leave no stone unturned before you leave Dublin behind.
But making people aware of the good things in Dublin is only the start. There are also a lot of perceived negative aspects to the city that need to be addressed if we are to encourage people to spend more time here. A flick through the findings of Designing Dublin’s research reveals a myriad of excuses not to head for the city centre. 48% of our population feel unsafe here after dark (and 10% would be intimidated enough to avoid visiting during the day) and parking is overpriced in the city centre – in fact, pretty much everything is: social attractions and drinks cost on average 8-11% more than they would outside the City. These problems are not unnoticed by Designing Dublin – they attempt to tackle them head on – but it will take more than an arts collective to address some of them, one suspects. But that doesn’t mean their efforts at regeneration are to be sniffed at. Perhaps it’s time we stopped dwelling on the negative and started to celebrate the places, characters, services and activities our city has to offer once more.
After all, only by acknowledging the resources and untapped potential we possess as a city can we begin to harness that power and transform it into something tangible. So arm yourself with one of these maps, get on yer Dublin Bike and start to uncover Dublin’s 100 hidden gems for yourself – or even better, ramble around until you stumble across your own hidden gems… we’ll see you in the Clock Bar’s aviary, perhaps (well, hopefully not in St Jame’s STI clinic, anyway). Go on, Love Your City.
