Published in The Dubliner.

Not changed utterly. Things will change in Dublin, but they will not change utterly. Dublin in 1970 was similar to Dublin in 2009, and Dublin in 2050 will be outwardly similar. The intervening days between today and 2050 – about 15,000 of them – offer us the opportunity to make things better for the children who will succeed us.

Grey is the new black By the year 2050, one in four workers will be over 65, and one in ten will be over 80. That’s right, I said “workers.” You will be working into your 70s and 80s; advances in healthcare and an increasing retirement age mean many of us will work 40, 50, perhaps even 60 years of our lives. So Dublin will be a grey city, with older people much more visible on the streets. Our golden years will be golden, and as culture and fashion move to accommodate the preferences of this large demographic, it’s going to be hip to be older.

Cities of ruin There is a 25-year development cycle in cities, as older buildings are refurbished, redeveloped, or knocked down and the land used for another purpose. We have just been through a development cycle of epic proportions, but in 25 years, the buildings built today will be depreciating. As a new generation comes into its own, they will need houses, and will change the city to suit themselves, subject to the technological constraints of the day. So expect another construction boom in 25 years. After all, the UK had a property boom in the 1990s and again in 2006/2007. All this has happened, and all this will happen again.

Your kids will be in demand Dublin has experienced a baby boom and unlike our property boom, these kids are here to stay. More babies were born in 2009 than any year since 1897. These children will be in their 20s in 2030, and in their 40s in 2050. They will take the reins of a society facing challenges we can’t yet imagine. The Leaving Certificate will not equip them with the tools to deal with this complex world. It is an obsolete method of instruction, designed to produce gifted list-learners for an industrial structure that doesn’t exist anymore. The main elements of a new educational system would focus on practical skills – First Aid, information management, basic accounting and so forth – while giving students the tools and the confidence to be as creative as they can be.
I have a hard-nosed reason for emphasising creativity as a necessary educational tool. Creative people make things. They want to sell those things. They create businesses to sell those things, and hire people to help them do that. The jobs created are high-value, so society will get richer as a result of the taxes these workers and business owners pay to the State, to support their by now wrinkly forebears; again, you and I.
Fertility levels in other industrialised countries are in long-run decline, so our kids will be a scarce resource in 2030, and in high demand – but only if we equip them with the tools to make themselves competitive in an international market for talented workers.

Flood Warning Rainfall levels are projected to increase by as much as 11 per cent in the coming years as climate change takes effect. More rainfall implies more flooding. What we speculate on now will be a daily reality for our kids, and theirs. We will need to create levees and move houses and businesses out of the areas most likely to be affected by flooding and climate change. Areas such as Ringsend and the Docklands will be under threat of flooding if we don’t take action now to defend them.