Google released Street View Ireland last week (go to Google Maps – maps.google.ie – zoom in on Ireland and drag the yellow man in the top left onto the map). One of the side effects is that they have captured the full extent of the housing bust as their cars drove round every road in the country in spring 2009 (see here for examples). Having looked at the startling Google Earth images at this blog of the housing bust in the US, I thought I’d capture a few Google Earth images of unfinished estates in Ireland. It’s actually very easy to spot under-construction estates in the areas of the country with high resolution imagery – simply zoom into a town and they stand out. Given that the imagery used in Google Earth can be a little dated (average three years old) some of these estates will now be completed, but many of them remain in a still under-construction state and have been joined by others. Here are eight of them.
Rob Kitchin
October 5, 2010 at 8:14 pm
Interesting, very interesting.
October 6, 2010 at 7:49 am
Well the first one is Sandyford, opposite Sandyford Mazda. Doesn’t do it justice though as you cannot see the funky tarps they put on the sides of the partially constructed buildings.
October 6, 2010 at 9:53 am
Are more of these buildings covered in tarps now? They used to be on the incompleted blocks around the square just to the south of that shot:
Rob, interesting to note how quickly streetview was adopted by myhome.ie
October 6, 2010 at 12:54 pm
I can’t see how it links in myhome.ie, but since their mapping interface is powered by a Google API, I imagine it’s very easy to do – and partially how Google will make their money back from the investment. Streetview will potentially become an interface for browsing for services – e.g. you’ll be able to click on a restaurant and link to its website or see its menu, etc.
October 6, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I thought there was a catalogue of closed shops here: http://streetviewireland.tumblr.com/ but I may be mistaken.
Isn’t streetview a real timesink?