Cities Reimagined (Cork / Limerick) EE19 EP8

Ireland’s population is expected to increase by more than 1 million people over the next 20 years, 75% of which will live in our cities. Can our cities handle this? Duncan Stewart investigates. Ireland’s expected population increase by 2040, of 1 million people will require half a million new homes and about 1.8 million urban apartments. Even now the viability of our cities as places to live, work and grow are not as healthy as they could be. Without an integrated approach to planning, Ireland’s cities are currently on track for a future with continuing sprawling growth, stagnation and a further decline of our environment from increasing levels of gridlock. Now with the realisation of the National Planning Framework, Government policy on planning has never been clearer or joined up in terms of infrastructure investment following planning- rather than the other way around. Under this new plan, over 40% of all new housing has to be delivered within existing urban areas on brownfield sites which could transform city life as we know it. In this episode Duncan Stewart travels to Limerick and Cork to find out if we can retrofit our cities and build communities suitable for families within the city limits. He’ll show how individuals and communities together can feed into the planning and development process that shape the development of our communities into the future.