Introduction
There are several reasons which make the economic and community development of Cork City in the coming six years crucial not only to the welfare of its own citizens, but equally to the future of the country at large. Cork is a vital motor of both a South-West 1 region that accounts for almost one quarter of Gross Value Added in the State but also, as its largest city, of the formally defined 2 Southern Region. In that context alone, Cork has a significant potential to grow. Cork city’s enviable location and topography makes it an obvious target for further investment, population growth and social and community development. In its combination of scenic river waterfront areas – a rare asset in a European let alone national context - and, since its expansion, strategic inland shoreline, its historic buildings and compact size, Cork City resembles cities like Copenhagen, Lisbon, and Stockholm. Cities that, in recent decades, have been positively transformed.
The expansion of the city’s boundaries provides a highly supportive administrative and policy foundation to realise this potential.
Cork City Council’s excellent track record of engagement with a wide variety of community, social and economic stakeholders provide a representative and effective system of partnership, both for guiding economic and community planning and for implementing it in partnership. Given both the potential of Cork City to grow and also its proximity to sources of wind and wave renewable energy and its waterfront location, Cork City has tremendous potential to become a test case and model leader in achieving sustainable economic urban development and growth, as have several other similarly sized cities across the EU. The relatively high level of households without access to renewable energy suggests that this opportunity is also, at the same time, a challenge. Many of the challenges facing Cork City identified in the analysis below (as well as in consultation feedback during this LECP process) are not just challenges but also opportunities. Socio-economic analysis focuses on economic and social trends necessarily because these are more visible and more frequently reported. But it should also consider hidden potential of the city that is waiting to be unleashed. A clear example of this – relevant to Cork’s status as a UNESCO Learning City – is the potential to address the skills shortage faced by businesses in the city by tapping the hidden potential of a significant young population through upskilling, training, and further education. Likewise, the potential to renovate underused and derelict areas of the city centre presents the prospect of both transforming communities in a sustainable manner and also of reducing costs to business by providing a wider range of possible locations for a variety of business activities. Finally, both the occupational and education profile of the City’s population is highly promising, with a higher than the national average share of those working in the professional services sector and also a higher than the national average having higher level qualifications. A key challenge, as implied above, will be to ensure that there is also access to the needed variety of other skills and aptitudes that are crucial to the sustainable development of the city’s service sector economy. Broader national and regional context might be noted also. In a national context it might be noted that Dublin’s metropolitan and county populations are – as shown in Annex 2 – significantly larger than other EU capital cities except for Paris. And even in the case of Paris, once Dublin County is considered, Dublin’s dominance of the State’s population is more than double that of the French capital. In a regional context the importance of the Cork City LECP 2024-2029 will be pivotal to the implementation of both the current and forthcoming National Spatial and Economic Strategies.
1 Defined by the CSO as comprising counties Cork and Kerry (including urban areas) combined. 2 As defined under the former EU NUTS (Nomenclature for territorial units for statistical) convention. The Southern Region comprises the combined NUTS level 3 regions of the Mid-West (Clare, Limerick and Tipperary), South-East (Carlow, Kilkenny, Waterford, and Wexford) and South-West (Cork and Kerry) including both urban and rural areas of each county.
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