Category financialization
New Frontiers #2: Energy Infrastructure
This is the second in a short series of posts about new sites of contestation that are emerging outside of the city – the usual focus for Dublin-based activists and social movements. While these sites of contestation are outside of the city, this doesn’t meant that they aren’t intimately connected with the city. Just think […]
Vulture Landlords: an in depth interview with Desiree Fields
The crisis in Ireland’s private rented sector keeps gathering steam, and recent additional regulations introduced by Alan Kelly are not going to make much of a difference. One of the most novel aspects of what’s happening currently is the emergence of a new type of landlord: financial institutions buying cheap real estate and becoming mega-landlords. […]
The future shape of Dublin’s Docklands
This post continues our focus on the new phase of development in the Dublin Docklands. In the past we’ve written about the Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), the absence of community participation and the displacement of the local cultural scene by new developments. Here we just provide an overview of the five major new developments […]
Shaping Dublin: a seminar series on the contemporary city
When: March/ April 2015 Where: Dunlop Oriel House, Corner of Fenian Street & Westland Row, Dublin 2. (map: http://bit.ly/1i7YapE) What time: 7.30pm During the ‘heyday’ of the Celtic Tiger, Dublin experienced speculative development in key areas like the Docklands; a housing bubble accompanied by dramatic increases in the cost of rent; and the increasing role […]
Openhere Starts Tomorrow
The Openhere conference/festival starts tomorrow in the Science Gallery, Dublin. The three-day program all looks really interesting – a great line-up of speakers – but perhaps most interesting for us are the talks by Brett Scott on open-source financing and the interview with the Robin Hood Collective who ask: “Could we bend the financialization of […]
Squatting in Dublin steps up a gear
The last year or so has seen DIY urbanism move up a gear in the fair city. Most notably, the unprecedented success and ambition of Granby Park marks a ‘before and after’ in terms of grassroots urban initiatives. This period has also seen Dublin City Council take an increasing interest in alternative or ‘creative’ uses […]
Docklands SDZ approved: what’s happening on the ground?
An Bord Pleanala has just approved the planning scheme for the Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ). We posted a while back about the SDZ, the purpose of which is to introduce ‘fast track planning’ in the North Lotts and Grand Canal Dock because the Dept. of the Environment, Dublin City Council and NAMA all believe […]
SOS Dublin Docklands
The decline of the Dublin dock’s was a major blow to the city, leaving a legacy of unemployment and poverty, issues which fomented the addiction crisis of the ‘80s and 90s and continue to wreak havoc on inner-city communities. This context is all-too-often forgotten by those interested in urban design, who have sometimes been guilty […]
The Abduction of Europe 1: why Europe?
This is the first of a series of blog posts we have prepared following our recent participation in the Abduction of Europe event which took place in Madrid. Here we contextualise the event politically, while future posts will look at some of the themes and movements which formed part of the event. The Abduction of […]
Six lessons from Spain’s anti-eviction movement
How did a handful of people in a room in Barcelona grow to become Spain’s nation-wide anti-eviction movement? How did those in mortgage arrears, a sector of society overwhelmed by debt, faced with the immanent possibility of homelessness and often suffering from unemployment, become a political actor which could place the housing crisis at the […]
provisional university 