If its current sprawl is allowed to continue, the Greater Dublin Area (GDA) will clearly fail to meet the goal set out five years ago of consolidating the metropolitan area, according to the region's latest planning guidelines.
The draft guidelines were published last December by the Dublin and Mid-East regions, comprising the four Dublin local authorities and Meath, Kildare and Wicklow County Councils, which together form the GDA.
In what they describe as a blueprint to develop the capital and its hinterland as a sustainable, European-style city region, the authors of the latest guidelines want to limit long-distance commuting by providing jobs closer to where people live.
The draft concedes that there has been "an imbalance" in the growth of the GDA, with much of it taking place in Meath, Kildare and Wicklow rather than in and around Dublin, contrary to what was envisaged by the first set of guidelines in 1999.
It notes that there is now a considerable amount of long-distance commuting to Dublin from hinterland towns such as Navan, Naas, Newbridge and Arklow, all of which were supposed to become "self-sustaining" in employment terms.
The draft doesn't even mention the huge overspill of population into a vastly-extended commuter belt within a 50 or 60-mile radius other than acknowledging that the GDA had "net losses to most counties" due to out-migration.
No attempt was made to quantify this trend using the 2002 Census.
Yet the fact that a good deal of Dublin's population growth is happening outside the GDA makes it even more difficult to consolidate the metropolitan area.
If current trends persist, as the draft acknowledges, jobs will continue to be predominantly located in and around Dublin while the population of the hinterland area will grow, leading to yet more car-commuting and congestion.
Its nightmare scenario for 2016 envisages that some of the countryside will resemble an ultra-low density suburb, that designated urban areas will not be as developed as planned, and that there will be difficulties in managing water resources.
According to the draft, the metropolitan area should be intensified, with higher housing densities in the north Kildare area around Maynooth and Kilcock, as well as along the increasingly important Dublin-Belfast economic corridor.
The guidelines suggest an outer orbital road linking Drogheda, Navan, Maynooth, Naas and possibly Wicklow, with the aim of promoting industrial development by achieving a critical mass of population and skills within and between these towns.
The draft proposes to withdraw the higher-density "metropolitan area" designation from sensitive upland regions close to the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains, and reclassify Enniskerry as part of the greenbelt "hinterland".
On public transport, it identifies an underground link between Heuston and Spencer Dock as a "vital project", and also calls for the disused Dublin-Navan railway line to be brought back into service, at least as far as Dunshaughlin, by 2010.
The objective of stemming Dublin's dispersal is based on an assumption that the regional planning guidelines, the National Spatial Strategy (NSS), and the Dublin Transportation Office's "Platform for Change" policy will all be implemented.
However, the draft casts some doubt on whether the multi-billion euro DTO strategy will be funded.
The deadline for submissions on the GRA Regional Planning Guidelines, which may be copied from the Internet at www.rpg.ie, is this Friday at 5 p.m. Submissions may be e-mailed to draft@mera.ie
