Limerick, a small post- industrial city in
the south-west of Ireland is currently undergoing a projected fifteen year
programme of urban regeneration, which was originally centred on a number of
deeply disadvantaged neighbourhoods (Hourigan 2011, Fitzgerald 2007). In September 2013, the Minister
of State for Housing and Planning launched the Limerick Regeneration Framework Implementation Plan, - which
is substantially different to the original 2008 Regeneration
'Master Plan' - and claimed it will deliver "safe and sustainable communities" and “greater
integration between the regeneration areas and adjacent communities.
Our paper begins by
analysing the original Regeneration ‘master plan’ (2008) and in particular the
plan to create mixed (socio-economic) communities. The paper draws on qualitative empirical work conducted
with residents in the regeneration areas and offers
a critical insight into the implementation (or rather lack) of the
policy to promote real and tangible diversity as part of the Regeneration
project. While policies promoting diversity
can have a positive impact on social cohesion within neighbourhoods and cities
(see Paddison and McCann 2014), our paper will argue that the policies pursued
in Limerick have had a polar opposite impact, creating marginalised /
ghettoised communities with uniform socio-economic populations (see Bridge
et al. 2012; Cheshire 2007) which exhibit quite
significantly reduced levels of “collective efficacy” (Power and Barnes 2010). The paper concludes with a theorisation
on the likelihood of the policies presented in the new Limerick Regeneration Framework Implementation
Plan achieving the desired outcomes.