Re:Paris Mayor: It's Time for a '15-Minute City'
by rsynnott on Saturday February 22, 2020 @11:15AM
(#22391713)
I think this is a problem with any disproportionately large city. But I’m not sure there’s a great solution, because the pseudo-Paris areas here presumably want their autonomy.
In Ireland, a country of under 5 million, all of the local authority decisions for the central bit of Dublin are made by Dublin City Council, which covers half a million people. But that’s largely an arbitrary distinction; the metropolitan area mostly covers three other local authorities and leaks into some others, and contains 1.5 million people. The only sign you have that you’ve wandered outside DCC in any direction is that the traffic lights are a bit different. And ‘greater Dublin’, which encompasses the adjacent local authorities, contains over 2 million. And that’s not the end of it; lots of people outside Greater Dublin commute in.
So, DCC makes decisions that impact at least 2 million people, but is elected by a population of 500k. I think there’s actually an argument for merging the four Dublin local authorities, but even that would be a political nightmare. Extending DCC to cover half the country is clearly not viable, and would not be accepted. But given that, it’s natural for DCC to care more about making the city work for people who live in its area and who vote for it than those commuting in from far away.
In Ireland, a country of under 5 million, all of the local authority decisions for the central bit of Dublin are made by Dublin City Council, which covers half a million people. But that’s largely an arbitrary distinction; the metropolitan area mostly covers three other local authorities and leaks into some others, and contains 1.5 million people. The only sign you have that you’ve wandered outside DCC in any direction is that the traffic lights are a bit different. And ‘greater Dublin’, which encompasses the adjacent local authorities, contains over 2 million. And that’s not the end of it; lots of people outside Greater Dublin commute in.
So, DCC makes decisions that impact at least 2 million people, but is elected by a population of 500k. I think there’s actually an argument for merging the four Dublin local authorities, but even that would be a political nightmare. Extending DCC to cover half the country is clearly not viable, and would not be accepted. But given that, it’s natural for DCC to care more about making the city work for people who live in its area and who vote for it than those commuting in from far away.