Suburban and urban housing in the twentieth century (original) (raw)

2011, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Section C

Ireland experienced dramatic political, social and economic change in the twentieth century, of which the shift from a majority rural to a majority urban population was one of the most notable. These changes are refl ected in the nature and form of the built environment. In this essay, the evolution of urban and suburban housing during Ireland's fi rst urban century is considered. Existing patterns of unplanned middleclass suburban expansion were supplemented, from the 1920s, by a programme of planned working-class suburbanization. State intervention thus impacted on the location and form of new housing estates, while layouts owed much to the early British town-planning movement. High levels of owner-occupation in Ireland, the combined result of government policy and individual preference, were also refl ected in a preference for particular housing forms. The predominance of the standardised three-or four-bedroom, semi-detached or detached house, was not challenged until the 1990s when there was a surge in apartment provision, largely driven by tax incentives. Changing norms in terms of housing size, facilities and design were shaped by the standards adopted by government and local authorities, as well as to the pressures of the speculative building process. The place called home, in an Irish context, changed little in the course of the twentieth century, and yet it also changed dramatically. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the fact that, while the typical home at the beginning of the twenty-fi rst century remains the single-family detached or semi-detached dwelling, its location and context are now rather different. The number of people living in each family home is now smaller, as household size has fallen, and fragmentation has occurred in the typical defi nition of 'family' (see Table 1). As Table 1 illustrates, the average household size has been in decline throughout the twentieth century, apart from a small degree of fl uctuation in the 1960s. The overall average household size for the state has fallen from 4.48 persons per private household in 1926 (the fi rst year for which data are available for the newly formed state) to 2.95 persons per private household in 2002. Since the 1980s, average household size in urban areas has been somewhat lower than that for rural areas. While the norm of a two-storey three-or four-bedroom house has proved enduring, the range of facilities and level of comfort has improved considerably since the early twentieth century, when the availability of hot and cold running