The grey doughnut
The Grey Doughnut is the name we have given to the large zone of land blighted by roads infrastructure since the late 1960’s that surrounds the city on all four sides.
To the West an urban motorway and a parallel ‘Inner Box’ ring road created a double cut. To the South, the road never materialised but nonetheless blighted the land around the Ormeau Baths. To the North lies the Interchange where three motorways converge and to the East various junctions create a large shatter–zone, that allied with a river with few bridges makes the East feel like a separate city. It should be mentioned that the inside this ring of roads can be walked across in 20 minutes, these are not peripheral areas, they are the centre.
Along with the cul de sac housing and blighted vacant lands bound by fast and busy roads, we have a city of sealed bitmac – why are we surprised when it floods occasionally?