Building smart city partnerships in the “silicon docks”

As a maritime city bisected by a river, Dublin has long signalled its periods of prosperity and progress, relative or absolute, with new bridges across the river Liffey in accordance with increases in the flows of goods and people. The port has progressively moved east on reclaimed land with new berths for larger ships, creating new crossing points as obsolete shallow water docks were ceded to urban development. Dublin Port now occupies the eastern extremity of the Dublin Docklands, with the central part largely converted from industrial use and warehousing to office blocks, residential apartments, civic amenities, and commercial usage. The “Celtic Tiger” that preceded the banking and housing crash of 2007-2008 left behind unfinished projects and vacant lots and the intangible promise of further development on dockland parcels adjacent to both sides of the river. Ten years after the onset of an economic crisis that led to an international rescue package from the EU and IMF, the economy is once again growing, albeit under more cautious management to try and prevent a repeat of the trauma of the 2008-2015 period. However, the crisis resulted in a severe housing shortage in Dublin, Cork, and other Irish cities due to years of construction inactivity.