What Great Neighborhoods Do — and What We Can Do Here
Transforming Coolock Village into a vibrant community hub isn’t a pipe dream. It’s happening right now in neighborhoods that refused to accept decline.
These communities didn’t wait for permission. They used hard-nosed legal tools: Community Land Trusts, Shared Space engineering, and Community Shares.
Here are five real examples of specific behaviors we can adopt in Coolock Village.
Poynton Town Centre (Cheshire, UK)
The Tool: Shared Space / Removing “Street Clutter”
Poynton’s main junction was a gridlock nightmare, with 26,000 cars a day choking the town. Instead of adding more barriers, the council removed traffic lights, railings, signs, and curbs.
The Behavior: They treated drivers like adults. By removing the “rules,” they forced drivers to engage socially with pedestrians. Average speeds dropped, accidents vanished, and local shop footfall increased.
Granby Four Streets (Liverpool)
The Tool: Community Land Trust (CLT)
Residents of these Victorian terraces stopped waiting for a “master plan.” They formed a Community Land Trust to take legal ownership of derelict houses themselves. They partnered with architects Assemble to rebuild the street on their own terms.
The Behavior: They didn’t just renovate; they improvised. They crushed construction rubble to make tiles and garden furniture. They turned a roofless house into a public Winter Garden. Their work was so impactful it won the Turner Prize in 2015.
Bellfield (Edinburgh)
The Tool: Community Share Offer
When the Old Parish Church in Portobello went up for sale, the community didn’t just sign a petition—they raised the cash. They launched a “Community Share Offer,” allowing locals to buy shares in the project.
The Behavior: Over 1,600 people invested, raising enough to buy the building debt-free. It is now Bellfield, a busy community centre run by the shareholders, ensuring it serves the actual needs of the village.
Govanhill Housing Association (Glasgow)
The Tool: Strategic Acquisition & Repair
Govanhill faced a crisis of “slum landlords” and crumbling tenements. The local Housing Association took a militant approach: they started buying the bad landlords out under their South-West Govanhill Property Acquisition and Repair Programme.
The Behavior: They purchased and renovated over 370 flats, stopping the rot from the inside out. They focused on “placemending”—repairing the historic fabric rather than demolishing it.
Superkilen (Copenhagen)
The Tool: Extreme Participation
When designing this park in Nørrebro, the architects didn’t pick the benches from a catalogue. They asked residents to nominate specific objects from their home cultures.
The Behavior: The park is now a collection of 108 objects from 62 countries: Moroccan fountains, Iraqi swings, Japanese octopus slides. It isn’t a “generic” park; it is a museum of the specific people who live there.
Less Talk, More Action
These aren’t abstract ideas. These are legal structures we can copy tomorrow. The mechanisms—cooperatives, approved housing bodies, section 38 road trials—all exist under Irish law.
The Coolock Village Forum is currently looking at the Bellfield model to see if it would work here.
Go deeper:
- Check out the Granby Four Streets story online—it’s worth your time.
- Come to the next Forum meeting. Details are on our Get Involved page.
Coolock Village Regeneration Project
Community Initiative
Community Discussion