InPLACE

InPLACE: Investigating Place, Planning and Commuting

The aim of the InPLACE study is to elucidate the impacts of pre- and post-COVID commuting on people and place. Taking a case study approach, and an island of Ireland perspective, the research examines the interplay between home, community and workplace across six towns that experience varying levels of (pre-COVID) out-commuting.

Its findings will have significance for a range of public policies, many of which are within the remit of local authorities, and all of which directly influence local communities, such as health, housing, environment, community development, social policy, transportation and spatial planning.

Study Towns

Phase 1:

Ennistymon-Lahinch, Co. Clare
Dundrum, Co. Down
Newtownmountkennedy, Co. Wicklow

Phase 2:

Aghagallon, Co. Antrim
Mountbellew-Moylough, Co. Galway
Kanturk-Banteer, Co. Cork
Sallins, Co. Kildare

About InPLACE

The global pandemic has dramatically changed the activity patterns of individuals and families, transforming everyday geographies, and the scale at which we live our lives. The implications for places and communities are potentially profound. One of the areas where this is most clearly seen is the changing relationship between work and home.

The enforced switch to home working has significantly reduced commuting to work, which had become a prominent feature of life on the island of Ireland. Decades of development have generated a growing concentration of employment in larger urban areas, which in turn has resulted in greater volumes and distances of commuting, and a steady increase in time spent commuting.

Despite this, there is a lack of Irish research on commuting, especially on questions relating to its impact on place, and place-based communities. Now, with the COVID-induced interruption in what had seemed an inexorable trend towards ever greater commuting, these questions about the relationships between commuting and community assume even greater significance.

This timely study sets out to address the gaps in our knowledge of this area, and to capture recent, and anticipated future, changes to commuting and telecommuting behaviors. In a context where the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between home and work, and consequently on communities and places, is only beginning to be understood, this study will capture the developing situation.