Draft Report v1.0
2.1 Best Thing About Cork
Description of Activity: Collected through a rapid ‘interview your neighbour’ as introductory activity to the workshop. This short activity focussed on personal experience of and relationship to the city and encouraged participants to connect with each other. From responses to the interview question on their opinion of ‘the best thing about Cork’ we can glean some key sense making insights for the City’s future. These draw on how people experience the city indicating what they value in those experiences. High Level Summary Content Analysis: Participants most frequently cited aspects specifically related to city scale, people and culture. Experiences on positive aspects of the city scale reference its compactness, ease of getting around as well as social connectivity. Where ‘people’ were cited as the best thing about Cork, this was often linked with other terms including culture and community. This social and cultural strength is further amplified by other participants identifying associated terms and characteristics including high frequency of the words ‘friendliness’ and ‘diversity’ as well as words relating to networks and connectivity. Broader but similarly relevant sentiments were also expressed through use of ‘a sense of’ place phrases, indicative of an experience of the social fabric, cultural-relatedness and inter-personal relationships in the City. These included phrases such as: a sense of belonging, a sense of pride, a sense of humour and a sense of identity. The City’s positive atmosphere and energy, its history and its established communities feature also, and particular cohorts are referenced including family, older people and students being mentioned. A particular participant references for example her family as now fourth generation living in Cork. This suggests that nurturing an intergenerational city is important as it contributes to an experience of social cohesion and continuity within communities. Other frequent occurrences relate to the City’s natural landscape, environment and geography. There is an evident sense of appreciation and connectedness with the river, waterfront, and wider natural beauty of the rural and coastal communities. This City-regional relationship is explicitly acknowledged in comments citing the quality of urban and rural life and access to benefits of city INSIGHTS: Sense of Place, Belonging and Identity • Sustaining a positive ‘sense of ’relating to the city and each other will be important as the city transitions in scale. • Nurturing an intergenerational city is important as it contributes to an experience of social cohesion and continuity within communities. • An appreciation for the natural environment and Cork’s City-regional relationship is valued both in terms of the city as an economic hub for the accessibility to urban, rural and coastal benefits.
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