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Comment by dajohnson89 | Hacker News Reader

Why isn't the city allowed to be denser?

NIMBYers mostly.

There's an awful lot of urban sprawl because of those archaic rules and you add to that a pretty terrible public transport by Western Europe standards. Dublin is pretty terrible place to live in if you're not wealthy.

Any attempt to improve both situations are thwarted by aforementioned NIMBY folks which are only looking out for themselves, among them the people in power.[0]

[0] https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times...

Partially because people don't want it to be, too. Irish people have an obsession with land, and see any dwelling that isn't at least a semidetached house with a back garden as a "temporary space" for students and unmarried young couples. We just don't like apartments.

> We just don't like apartments.

People have legitimate reasons for not liking apartments in Dublin of which noise is a major reason.

Lax planning & building regs. dictated to politicians by developers ensured that apartments were small and had neighbours on pretty much every side.

Most people who left apartments did so for valid reasons, not an obsession with land.

Living long term in 98% of apartments in Dublin would ruin your quality of life.

I’m Irish and I live in a 60 square metre flat with my wife and we’re expecting a baby. I can distinctly hear one neighbour’s music most evenings and while the other is quieter I can hear them shagging. This is not a big deal. If most of the population of Shanghai can do it Irish people can too. My quality of life is great.

I lived in a "nice" apartment which had neighbours attached above, below, to the back & 2 to the same side(staggered, joined apt blocks).

There was 0 chance of being able to sit quietly in that apartment and just concentrate or listen to music at an ambient level.

It's great that your tolerance level for noise is that high - most peoples' aren't, thus the constant exodus to the surrounding counties to get a house(which itself is no longer doable with a sane commute (<1 hr))

Dublin's population is 1.3 million. It's not London. It's not San Francisco. It's not New York.

Yes, the building quality is shockingly low and the majority of people accepts that.

Same as any other city: zoning. People want to live in cities and local governments won't allow developers to build more housing to accommodate them. The rare scraps of land that are zoned properly for high density are developed into luxury housing.

Same as anywhere else. The locals don’t want that to happen. Unfortunately, other people want to live there too, and there’s a market for housing so it has the obvious effect.

Pure speculation. Like in many other cities the density is limited, often with silly excuses, in order to drive up the market.

Home owners, including large financial groups, sustain this policy.

for some reason i never considered this as a motivation for nimbyism. but it’s probably the best/simplest explanation in most cases.

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