Great piece Mick. Thanks a million for looking at this topic and prompting the rest of us to take these ideas an narratives seriously given the attraction they can have.
Exceptional deep dive into how nationalist rhetoric weaponizes legitimate housing grievances. The part about FDI employees pricing locals out is a clever reframing of class conflict as ethnic tension, something populist movements have done for centuries. What struck me is how Lenihan's nostalgic vision of "fireside storytelling" sidesteps any real policy prescrip tions, which makes it harder to counter with evidence. I worked with planning data in Dublin and the commuter belt expansion was indeed brutal on local infrastruture, but blaming migration misses the systemic issues entirely.
Yes indeed. The prescriptions bit of the book doesnt touch on housing issue. He seems to want some kind of mix of protectionist state industrial policy and laissez faire economics, but it is very unclear altogether
Great piece Mick. Thanks a million for looking at this topic and prompting the rest of us to take these ideas an narratives seriously given the attraction they can have.
Thanks Ann Marie.
Exceptional deep dive into how nationalist rhetoric weaponizes legitimate housing grievances. The part about FDI employees pricing locals out is a clever reframing of class conflict as ethnic tension, something populist movements have done for centuries. What struck me is how Lenihan's nostalgic vision of "fireside storytelling" sidesteps any real policy prescrip tions, which makes it harder to counter with evidence. I worked with planning data in Dublin and the commuter belt expansion was indeed brutal on local infrastruture, but blaming migration misses the systemic issues entirely.
Yes indeed. The prescriptions bit of the book doesnt touch on housing issue. He seems to want some kind of mix of protectionist state industrial policy and laissez faire economics, but it is very unclear altogether