100s and 1000s of Derelict Buildings in Our Old Towns - So What?

Who cares anyhow? Why bother fixing them up at all? Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to let them moulder and crumble?

Then we could sweep them all away and start anew.

That’s what happened between the bridges of the town where I grew up: Enniskillen, Northern Ireland's island town.

There we didn’t even wait until our old homes on the side streets were vacant and derelict.

Good old 1960s housing renewal saw to that.  By no means exclusive to Enniskillen the same approach was rolling out across the UK and US.

Back then the idea was:

1️⃣ Move everyone out and into new homes (here, off the island)

2️⃣ Toss the old houses

3️⃣ Scatter home grown communities to the winds

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

The upside:

Old Enniskillen doesn’t have a lot of vacancy or dereliction today – well, apart from the beautiful main street there's not much of it left.

The downside:

After the shops close at 6:00pm the old centre doesn’t have a lot of people either.

There’s hardly any community left living between the bridges.

As Brené Brown says:

‘We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering.’

Like joined-up cursive writing the joined-up houses and shops in old Irish towns help join-up the people living and working there, that's if they still do.

Attached terraced buildings, row houses and the streets they shape are useful frameworks for growing vital, vibrant communities.

We are dealing with among the most challenging crises of our times:

• Affordable housing shortage and homelessness epidemic 

• Spiralling rental and property prices

• Terrible climate events

Add to those a loneliness pandemic - and the mental and physical suffering this is causing, globally. Then there's the health costs.

To help us cope better we need to build the kind of resilience that’s part and parcel of belonging to a vibrant community.

Our decrepit, crumbling old town centres - whether in Ireland or elsewhere - offer us that possibility.

Repairing what's left of our joined-up streets, before it's too late, can help reduce the financial costs and human suffering caused by housing stress, homelessness and loneliness.

We toss them at our peril.

I help local authorities and the communities they serve breathe new life into crumbling old town and village centres – even where it seems impossible.

Like to chat? DM me here.