Dublin's Digital Hubris: Lessons from an Attempt to Develop a Creative Industrial Cluster

ABSTRACT

Dublin's Digital Hub project was intended to be a digital district boasting not only an exciting industry of the future employing thousands of media, technology and creative workers, but an entire district of apartments, retail units and leisure areas. Six years after its inception, only two of the total nine acre site have been in any way developed and the project faces collapse following the closure of its star anchor tenant, Media Lab Europe. This research briefing contours the rise and fall of the project, suggesting lessons to be learned from the tortuous route followed in this attempt to plan and develop a creative digital cluster.