Centered City is located in the middle of the River Lee and is the location of the City’s original trading post settlement. Centre City really is a delight with many comfortable pedestrian streets lined with shops, restaurants, and bars, extensive mixed-use fabric and several great landmarks and gathering places. The most vibrant part of Centre City is between S Mall and Saint Patrick Street where Oliver Plunket bisects. Oliver Plunket St is the longest pedestrian street that cuts through the Heart of Centre City. Several narrow streets run perpendicular to Oliver Plunket St and are at least partially pedestrian. Saint Patrick Street/Grand Parade hold excellent retail amenities, wide, plaza wide sidewalks and the excellent English Market and Bishop Lucey Park.  Cornmarket Centre Shopping Mall is another great hub surrounded with lots of shops and the activity Main Street business St a block away.

Its hard for a mid-city to beat Center City from an urbanist perspective but there are some areas where it can improve including better tree canopy, more park and plaza space, and more recreational space along the riverfront. This is a very tight and built up Center City, so creating new park spaces is a challenge but they did find a way to install a great separate bike lane system in Center City. One would think they could find a way to add more parks and plazas.

Click here to view my Center City Cork Album on Flickr

URBAN STRENGTHS:

* Excellent historic architecture throughout
* Very vibrant and mixed-use. Center City packs in a lot!
* Great shopping options still in Center City especially along St. Patrick St. & Grand Parade. Wonderful wide sidewalk and new streetscaping along these streets as well.
* English Market is a top notch historic market supported by many businesses.
* Extensive pedestrian street running down Oliver Plunket St (car free at least most of the time). Many pedestrian or limited traffic roads running perpendicular to Oliver street connecting to St Patrick St to the north and less so to S Mall to the south. Maylor St is prob the 2nd longest mostly pedestrian St. and hosts many shops.
* Also nice Commercial districts along Washington, Sheares St., Main St., S Mall, and Cornmarket St which hosts the Cornmarket Centre shopping Mall.
* Several well planned and designed separated bike lanes. Impressed they could create these considering how limited roadway space is in the Center City.
* Several wonderful historic churches dwtn (i.e. St. Augustine’s, St. Peter & Paul’s, St. Francis, Holy Trinity.
* Excellent cultural amenities including tons of bars & restaurants, a movie theater, tons of performing arts theaters, and many live music venues.

URBAN WEAKNESSES:

* While Center City bike lane network is great it doesn’t connect well to the inner City neighborhoods and Cork as a whole.
* Limited tree canopy Dwtn.
* No real park space or recreational trail along the waterfronts.
* Limited Park and plaza space in Center City.