http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/wee ... tml?via=mr

The Irish Times is running this......its kind of an interesting idea, although one assumes that after all is said and done it will be a photo finish between Sandymount and Dalkey.....with special mention to some trendy country town like Listowel.

The comment from Frank MacDonald is interesting:

"The best place to live is on a street...."

Also, am not surprised to see Stoneybatter mentioned. Its trendy.....houses have no gardens? no matter. its trendy.

Having said that, I don't want to be too cynical; I actually found the judges comments quite interesting.

An interesting idea, alright.

Works as a "best place to live" concept - i.e. type of street, community etc, but not as a location.

Location is totally subjective and it always swayed by where you grew up, where your family/friends are, where you work, and so on.

There was some study on this recently that took into consideration environmental issues, transport links, job prospects etc and it came up with Galway and SCD came bottom.

Ah yeah....but there's nothing they can do about that.

The emphasis on community is important within the discussion.

Even within the small area that I live in, for example on our street everyone knows one another, there a lot of kids, we've had street parties in the past, we all go to the St Patricks day parade together and so on.

Two streets away in the same estate, a guy I know has had desperate trouble with his neighbours, cant wait to get out of there.

Its a fragile thing, 'community spirit'.....I remember a guy saying to me once that the only reason he brings his kids to mass was that its the only occasion, in the part of town he lives in (Cabinteely I think) where they can meet other people from the area. Having grown up in the country, I just find it bizarre this notion of people not knowing who their neighbours are in Dublin. But its the way things are.

Hard to see how Galway could outstrip SCD in either transport links or job prospects.

Probably didn't but the environmental factors outweighed it. When they said transport they seemed to mean being close to, but not right beside, an airport and motorways, rather than QBCs, traffic in SCD and communting time was a big downside.

Depends on the kind of job you're looking for.
If you want jobs in certain fields, they tend to cluster, often in apparently unlikely places. SCD, Galway and greater Cork would all be OK for me, much better than central Dublin, for example.

THats true, but the clusters tend to be in Dublin with the exception of pharmaceuticals....

Not trying to be a cheerleader for SCD, I dont live there, but I cant think of any profession bar something Irish language related where jobs are more readily available in Galway than Dublin.

Do you have a link or reference to that study? I'd really love to read a report which came up with the notion that Foxrock, Dalkey, Sandycove, Kiliney, Donnybrook, Ranelagh, Monkstown and Blackrock etc., etc., are somehow, among the worst places to live in Ireland!

Medical device manufacturing and R&D are concentrated in those two areas in particular.

Fair enough, but that probably derives from an IDA led initiative to create or place industry centres outside of Dublin......which only illustrates the notion that Dublin is the centre of that jobs market, and disproportionately so......

No, I've just been googling looking for a link but can't find it, I just saw it discussed in TV3, I think there was a strong bias toward environmental factors which would explain the result.

Outer Dublin plus Meath, Kildare and Wicklow, yes. Inner Dublin, no. (if you work in manufacturing, that is). In the same way, London was an employment desert for me when I lived in the UK. Practically the only employers were public sector.

My own view is that the best part of Dublin to live in would be Sandymount; and the best town outside of Dublin to live in would be Kilkenny.

Not as scientific, but I might as well give this a link: http://www.likeplace.ie/