Agitating for a design and regeneration agenda in a post-conflict city: the case of Belfast

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgement Figures 3, 4 and 7 are based upon Crown Copyright material and are reproduced with the permission of LPS under delegated authority from the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office, Crown Copyright and database rights 2009 MOU 203. Notes The Forum for Alternative Belfast is constituted as a Community Interest Company. It has seven Directors and a support network of around 30–40 people from various backgrounds who have contributed to both projects and events. The directors include practising architects and academics from both Queen's University Belfast and the University of Ulster. See, for example, Bernard, H.R., Social Research Methods; Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (London, Sage Publications, 2000); Creswell, J., Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Method Approaches (London, Sage Publications, 2009). Hamdi, Nabeel, Small Change: The Artistry of Practice and the Limits of Planning in Cities (London, GBR: Earthscan Publications Limited, 2004), p. xxi. See, for example, Cooke, P., ed., Localities: Changing Face of Urban Britain (London, Routledge, 1989) and Harvey, David, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Oxford, Blackwell, 1996). Jones, P., ‘Putting Architecture in its Social Place: A Cultural Political Economy of Architecture’, Urban Studies, Vol. 46, Number 12 (2009), p. 2520. Massey, D., For Space (London, Sage Publications, 2005). Romann, M. and Weingrod, A., Living Together Separately: Jews and Arabs in contemporary Jerusalem (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991). Bollens, Scott, A., ‘Urban Planning amidst Ethnic Conflict: Jerusalem and Johannesburg’, Urban Studies, Vol. 35, No. 4 (1998), pp. 729 – 750. Misselwitz, P. and Rieniets, T., ‘Cities of Collision’, in, Misselwitz, P. and Rieniets, T., eds, City of Collision: Jerusalem and the principles of conflict urbanism (Boston, Berlin, Birkhauser, 2006); Yiftachel, O. and Yacobi, H., ‘Urban ethnocracy: ethnization and the production of space in an Israeli “mixed city”’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 21 (2003), pp. 673–93. See, for example, Brand, R., ‘Written and Unwritten Building Conventions in a Contested City: The Case of Belfast’, Urban Studies, Vol.46, Number 12, (2009), pp. 2669–2689. Dovey, Kim, ‘Memory, Democracy and Urban Space: Bangkok's ‘Path to Democracy’, Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2001), p. 267. Caldeira, T., City of Walls: crime, segregation and citizenship in Sao Paulo, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001). Weiner, R., The Rape and Plunder of the Shankill (Belfast, Farset Co-operative Press, 1980; 2nd Edition). See, for example, Brett, C. E. B., Buildings of Belfast (Belfast, Friar's Bush Press, 1985). Gaffikin, F. and Morrissey, M., eds, City Visions: Imagining Place, Enfranchising People (London, Pluto Press, 1999), p.165. In August, 1973, The Journal of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Commission reported that since 1969, 60,000 people in Belfast had been forced to move from their homes through intimidation in ‘the largest enforced population movements in Europe since the Second World War’. Curtis, Jennifer, (2008) ‘“Community” and the Re-Making of 1970s Belfast’, Ethnos, Vol. 73.3, p.402. Ibid., p.417. Neill, William J. V., ‘Marketing the Urban Experience: Reflections on the Place of Fear in the Promotional Strategies of Belfast, Detroit and Berlin’, Urban Studies, Vol. 38, Nos 5–6 (2001), p. 821. McEldowney, M., Sterrett, K. and Gaffikin, F., ‘Architectural Ambivalence: the Built Environment and Cultural Identity in Belfast’, in, Neill, William J.V. and Schwedler, Hanns-Uve, Urban Planning and Cultural Inclusion: Lessons from Belfast and Berlin (Basingstoke, Hampshire, and New York, Palgrave, 2001), p. 107. Local councils in Northern Ireland have only limited functions such as waste collection, maintenance of parks and cemeteries and building control. Planning, regeneration and housing responsibilities rest with central government departments. O'Dowd, L., Rolston, B. and Tomlinson, M., Between Civil Rights and Civil War (London, CSE Books, 1981). Bollens, S., Urban Peace Building in Divided Societies: Belfast and Johannesburg (Boulder, Co,Westview Press, 1999). Ellis, G., ‘Addressing Inequality: Planning in Northern Ireland’, International Planning Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2000), p. 350. Ibid., p. 351. Murtagh, B., The Politics of Territory: Policy and Segregation in Northern Ireland (Palgrave, 2002), p. 168. Department of the Environment (NI), Belfast Urban Area Plan (1986). See, for example, Cowan, C., ‘Belfast's hidden planners’, Town and Country Planning, 51, 6 (1982), pp. 163–167; Dawson, G., ‘Defensive planning in Belfast’, Irish Geography, 17. 1, (1984), pp. 22–41; Hillyard, P., ‘Law and Order’, in, J. Derby, ed., Northern Ireland: the Background to the Conflict (Belfast, Appletree Press, 1983). Murtagh, B. (2002), op. cit., p. 164. Stollard, P., ‘The Architecture of No-Man's Land’, Architect's Journal, Vol. 180, No. 31 (1984), pp. 24–39. The Forum for Alternative Belfast initially emerged following an event at the Cathedral Arts Festival in the city in June, 2008. A small group of architects and urban planners invited Ron Weiner to speak at the Festival about the inspiration for his book The Rape and Plunder of the Shankill, published over thirty years ago. The book told the story of how a working-class community in Belfast was devastated by planning and redevelopment. The story inspired others across the world, including Mike Davis, to consider how working-class communities could challenge the authority and rationales of urban planning regimes: Davis, M., City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (London,Verso, 1990); Davis, M., Planet of Slums: Urban Involution and the Informal Working Class (London, Verso, 2006). Bollens, S., ‘Urban Governance at the Nationalist Divide: Coping with Group-Based Claims’, Journal of Urban Affairs, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2007), pp. 229–253. Ibid. p. 240. Murtagh, B., ‘New Spaces and Old in “Post-Conflict” Belfast’, Divided Cities/Contested States Working Paper Series (2008) (www.conflictincities.org/workingpapers.html), p. 3. Soja, Edward, W., (2009) ‘Designing the Postmetropolis’, in, Krieger, A. and Saunders, W.S., eds, Urban Design (Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press, 2009), p.259. Over a period of five days in August, 2009, around fifty architects, planners, students and others took part in the study, and each evening outside professionals, community representatives, artists and academics participated in reviews of the work. The outcomes of the research were formally presented in Belfast City Hall in January, 2010, at an event hosted by the Lord Mayor (now MP for East Belfast), Naomi Long, who fully supported the overall initiative. The Study Area was defined as an area within a 15-20 minute walking distance of Belfast City Centre. It covers all or part of a number of inner-city wards, including Duncairn, Crumlin, Shankill, Clonard, Blackstaff, Island, New Lodge, Waterworks, Falls, Shaftesbury, Woodstock and Ballymacarrett. All statistical calculations are based on Super Output Area Census and Mid-Year estimates provided by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (http://www.nisra.gov.uk/). Each site was assessed both for its suitability and for its potential residential capacity. On the basis of this analysis, and using an agreed formula, it was estimated that the vacant land could accommodate at least an additional 50,000 people. Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency NISRA: based on 2006 projections. See, for example, Liam O'Dowd and Milena Komarova, ‘Regeneration in a Contested city: A Belfast Case Study’, Working Paper No. 10 (Belfast, Queen's University, School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, 2009); http://www.conflictincities.org. Gaffikin, F, Sterrett, K., McEldowney, M., Morrissey, M. and Hardy, M., Planning Shared Space for a Shared Future (Belfast, The Community Relations Council, Northern Ireland, 2008). Ibid., p. 123. Gallagher, T., ‘Education in Context’, in Donegall Pass: Towards a Sustainable Community (Belfast, CU2, Queen's University, 2008). McKeown, Michael, Post-Mortem: An examination of the patterns of politically associated violence in Northern Ireland during the years 1969–2001 as reflected in the fatality figures for those years (Belfast, Cain: Conflict Archive on the Internet, 2009; http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/victims/mckeown/). Morrissey, M. and Gaffikin, F., ‘Planning for Peace in Contested Space’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 30.4 (December, 2006), pp. 873–93. See, for example, Gehl, Jan, Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space (Copenhagen, The Danish Architectural Press, 2008). The Divis project now has the support, and technical assistance, of the Department of Regional Development's Roads Service (DRD) engineers, who, under public pressure, are beginning to think more imaginatively about road barriers in the city. As well as this, an implementation plan for the scheme demonstrates minimum cost to the public purse. Significantly too, the West Belfast Partnership Board (www.westbelfast-partnership.com) has supported the project, not least because of the need for both residential and office accommodation in this part of inner-city Belfast. See, for example, Shuttleworth, I. and Lloyd, C., Mapping Segregation in Belfast: Northern Ireland Housing Executive Estates (Belfast, Northern Ireland Housing Executive, 2007). Belfast Telegraph newspaper (25th January, 2010). Hamdi, Nabeel (2004), op. cit., p.101. Till, Jeremy, ‘The negotiation of hope’, in, Blundell Jones, Peter, Petrescu, Doina and Till, Jeremy, eds, Architecture and Participation (Oxford, Spon Press, 2005). See, for example, Gunder, M., ‘Passionate planning for the others’ desire: an agonistic response to the dark side of planning', Progress in Planning, 60 (2003), pp. 235–319. Till, Jeremy (2005), op. cit., p.40. Soja, Edward, W. (2009), op. cit., p. 260. See, for example, Gaffikin, F., McEldowney, M. and Sterrett, K., ‘Creating Shared Public Space in the Contested City: The Role of Urban Design’, Journal of Urban Design, Vol. 15, No. 4 (November, 2010), pp. 493–513. Also, Comedia, (2007) Bringing Communities and People Together. Commission on Integration and Cohesion, and DEMOS (2007) Equally Spaced? Public space and interaction between diverse communities. A Report for the Commission for Racial Equality. McNeill, D. and Tewdwr-Jones, M., ‘Architecture, Banal Nationalism and Re-territorialization’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 27.3 (2003), pp. 738–43. See, for example, Morrissey, M. and Gaffikin, F. (2006), op. cit. O'Dowd, Liam, ‘Belfast Transitions’, in, Downey, Karen, Where are the people: contemporary photographs of Belfast 2002–2010 (Belfast, Belfast Exposed Photography, 2010).