Housing occupies more land than any other urban use and it helps define the character of any city. Dublin continued to expand its footprint during the 1950s and particularly the 1960s and quickly spilled over into the county area. Dubliners favoured a low density city and a three or four bedroomed house with a garden and perhaps space for a car was seen as the norm. Dublin Corporation was an active house builder, though it slowed its housing provision for some years in the late 1950s, and large developments appeared on the northern edge of the city where most land was available. This was also the period when home ownership became much more common in the private market and the scale of house building, largely in the southern suburbs, reflected a growing city and a more confident economy. Builders sought to build estates but without an ‘estate look’ and looked to the USA for inspiration.
Up to the 1960s, flats were largely a phenomenon of the inner city and were mainly built by Dublin Corporation. A private sector market in flats began to emerge in the late 1950s but growth was slow and imagination often lacking in developments, which were mostly southside. The big housing experiment of the period was with system building and high rise on the periphery of the city in Ballymun and, for a time, it seemed as if this approach would come to dominate future provision in both public and private sectors. These and other issues are explored in this latest volume in the Making of Dublin City series which, as usual, is enhanced by a significant number of illustrations.
The book may be obtained directly from Four Courts Press.
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Joseph Brady Catalogue Price: €26.95 ISBN: 978-1-84682-599-6 September 2016. 464pp; 100+ b&w illustrations |
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Chapter headings
- INTO THE 1950s
- A REVITALISED HOUSING PROGRAMME
- FLATS AND HIGH RISE
- HOME OWNERSHIP
- THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT
- THE HOUSING SECTOR AT THE END OF THE 1960s
- SOCIAL AREAS OF DUBLIN, 1971
- THE WIDER URBAN CONTEXT
