Originally Posted by
osarusan
A foot.ie regular spoofer is what he was.
Heh, actually? Why was that? I can't recall any specific issue. I don't know him personally, but I always remember thinking he was a diligent poster who spoke a lot of sense, not just here, but on Derry City Chat too.
Originally Posted by
BonnieShels
That "analysis" is flawed beyond belief. The infrastructure that he deals with has been in place for decades. The sectarian nature of it is obvious but it was implemented pre-NI and during the "home-rule" period of 1922-1972.
To be fair to him, I think Steve acknowledges that and is arguing that the Tory-DUP deal will only exacerbate the historical imbalance that he highlights. He wrote:
"The additional £400m for infrastructure secured in the Conservative-DUP agreement therefore offers an opportunity to begin acknowledging and addressing NI’s transport apartheid. Yet the text of the deal suggests that it is more likely instead to exacerbate the imbalance."
You have to remember that the population densities (regardless of denomination) west of the Bann don't require major infrastructural spending such as bypasses and railways.
He responded to the "smaller population density in the west" argument in the comments section and made the following points (which I think are pretty solid):
"1) Despite the absence of decent infrastructure, 27% of NI currently live in its three western counties. That is not an insignificant proportion (certainly not of the 'no-one lives there' level mentioned in some responses below). For perspective - 15.5% live in Belfast City, and 37% in the Belfast Metropolitan/Greater Belfast area (i.e. the old council areas for Belfast, Lisburn, Castlereagh, Newtonabbey, North Down and Carrockfergus)
2) If you look at a map of the population density of NI - Derry City and its environs, south-east County Derry and east Tyrone have relatively high densities. Their densities are identical if not higher than swathes of the east which have much better infrastructure. In particular, there is a ring of population density/concentration around Lough Neagh, for example, yet only its eastern and southern sides have the infrastructure.
3) As mentioned in the article, it's a chicken and egg scenario. Jobs and population gravitate away from areas of poor infrastructure towards those with better infrastructure. That is a fact. How will somewhere like Derry have a chance of attracting the job creation it needs when any foreign company would baulk at how awkward it is to get there from NI's key international gateways (e.g. stuck behind a tractor on the Glenshane pass, or spending 2 and a half hours on an infrequent one-track railway to arrive at the most isolated station on NI's train network which is also away from the city centre it should serve). And without the ability to attract employment to places like Derry, Omagh and Enniskillen, how is the west's population expected to grow significantly as a proportion of the province ? If the west is deemed not to have the population to justify better infrastructure, it will remain an under-performing/impoverished generator of outward migration (to the east and beyond), thereby continuing to justify its poor infrastructure ad infinitum.
4) Re cause and effect : the west was promised motorways to replace the railways it lost in the 1960s, yet never got them. The east by-and-large retained its railways, and then also got given the only sections of motorway that were ever built. Given the avowedly sectarian nature of the pre-Troubles Stormont government ("a protestant parliament for a protestant people"), it would be naive to pretend that religious demography played no part whatsoever in those decisions."
Just on the matter of Irish railway lines, I always found these comparison maps pretty revealing in terms of how partition had a sort of double-whammy peripheralising effect upon border areas in Ireland, particularly the north-west of the country:
Pre-partition, approximately ten rail-lines crossed what is now the border. Nowadays, only one line crosses the border; the line between Newry and Dundalk. The only counties in Ireland without any railway in the present day are all Ulster border counties; Donegal, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Monaghan.
Partition led to Donegal - already geographically-isolated from its national capital, Dublin - being cut off from its main regional market town or commercial centre, Derry, by the new political-economic border. Derry, meanwhile, was separated politically and economically from its natural Donegal hinterland and also from London by geography.
There's a bit on the matter here by Roy Johnston, which is interesting: http://www.rjtechne.org/century130703/1990s/polit90.htm
"Starting with the Northwest, pre-Partition it was possible to get from Westport to Sligo and on to Omagh and Derry by rail; the system also interfaced with the light rail system in Donegal at Strabane and Derry. There was the makings of a viable economic hinterland in the Northwest, which extended down to the West. The possibilities presented by this were killed by Partition; Derry was cut off from its natural hinterland; both Derry and its hinterland became declining peripheral areas of remote centralist capitals in Dublin, and in London via Belfast.
In the East, there was a rail complex linking Dundalk and Newry with the port of Greenore; Dundalk was linked directly by rail to Dungannon and Derry. We are talking of the 1921 situation, when rail transport, and connection to ports, was the key to economic development. The infrastructure was in place; given independence and a benign government close at hand, development of a vibrant economy was totally feasible. Partition killed all this, leaving Dundalk and Newry peripheralised."
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