Last month at @what_if_dublin, we took at look at the city at night. We were interested in people’s perception of safety and conducted a Twitter poll. Out of 54 votes, 59% said they felt safe on Dublin’s streets at night, while 41% said they didn’t.
The results of the last ‘Your Dublin, Your Voice’ Survey, carried out for Dublin City Council in 2012, are even more eye-opening. This showed that 74% of people feel safe in Dublin by day, while only 35% feel safe at night. What can be done to tackle this problem?
Contributing factors to the perception of safety in a city are its lighting and visible activity. Bright, busy streets are magnets that attract people and make them feel safe.
But lighting is too often an overlooked element in urban design. It is a vital element of any functioning city and extremely difficult to achieve the right balance. Too dark and one feels intimidated, too bright and you kill the atmosphere and character of the city. As one of our commentators on twitter @equinns put it ‘a city totally cleansed of its dark nooks and crannies is a sterile dead city’.
Some of our city’s most beautiful locations are so dimly lit at night that only the very brave will risk entering these zones, for instance the Liffey quays, the canal areas and indeed the bay area. All possess the potential of being amongst the city’s most beautiful areas if properly illuminated.
Our policy vis-à-vis lighting seems to have been developed in a very ad hoc manner. On Merrion Square, a “Museum of Lamps” houses an informal collection of Dublin street lights, depicting lights down through the years. Indeed the lighting design of our whole city seems to have this disjointed feel to it and where there is lighting it is often not utilised, or left in disrepair.
With some thought, we could light up areas of scenic, architectural and historical importance. Planners, lighting experts and architects together could readily select lighting conducive to every environment where people would feel safer to visit. Transforming darkness into light could become a reality, adding considerably to the artistic imprint of an already incredibly beautiful city.
Next month we will be looking into Dublin for kids. What infrastructure for children does the city have to offer and what needs improvement? Get involved and send us your ideas via @what_if_dublin or #whatifdublin on Twitter, or email us at whatifdublin@gmail.com.
The original image was kindly provided by Ciarán Murray of Come Here To Me! www.comeheretome.com
Words: What If Dublin Team
Image: What If Dublin
