Above is Relative affluence or disadvantage of Local Electoral Areas (LEA) in Ireland. The map may be of particular interest to Cork people. The most disadvantaged Local Electoral Area (LEA) in Ireland is Cork City North-West indicating that deprivation is both an urban and rural phenomenon. The 2016 Pobal HP Deprivation Index (Haase and Pratschke, 2016) provides a method of measuring the relative affluence or disadvantage of a particular geographical area. It takes into acco

Cork County Council sure do love a greenbelt. Dark Green = no bloody way are we allowing the city expand in here, but if you're a town in here ... 'not a bother biy'....build build build...

This article first appeared on RTE Brainstorm available here The term ‘creative’ is popular, but a fuzzy concept. Humans are the carriers of knowledge and we are inherently creative. Human capital has long been identified as a major source of economic growth. Richard Florida (a leading author on economic competitiveness) stressed the important relationship between culture, creative occupations and innovation and he argued that creativity should be seen as an occupational base

Above is a depiction of a two story Ireland - East and West. Most parts of Ireland are experiencing high price growth but the rate of the growth varies considerably. Most roads are leading to Dublin where the Dublin City Region is experiencing most of the high positive increases in Median house price. The city and county of Galway and parts of Cork and Kilkenny are also experiencing high positive house price growth. The West and Midlands are experiencing most of the fall. It

How to fix the housing Crisis? With Karl Spain, David McWilliams & Aidan Regan. Thanks to Alina Kisina for great photos!

As can be identified in the graph (Picture on right) the Western side of the island has a much older population, relative to the Eastern side. The housing market (& job market) is increasingly being polarized into a West/East divide over time. Two distinctive generational housing pyramids are emerging in the Republic. Increased population in the East (largely due to natural population increases and migration effects from rural to urban areas) competing for their share of the

This is a presentation on recent research work by Frank Crowley and Justin Doran (CUBS, UCC) on the role of creative occupations and the cre

On November 2nd, 2017 I presented at the Road to ERSA Workshop. The Workshop Topic was: Spatial Aspects of Entrepreneurship, Social Capital, and Wellbeing Workshop. I presented on the importance of tolerance as a measure of social capital in determining life satisfaction in Europe which is new work of mine co-authored with Dr Edel Walsh (CUBS, UCC) A number of presenters took part in the workshop including (1) Richard Rijnks, University of Groningen on “The Value of a Happ