LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF

BELFAST REGENERATION
Refexive Essay

Description:
A reflexion about how the Northern Ireland conflict affects to the urban planning

Ana Pereira
apereirasanchez01@qub.ac.uk
 Lights and shadows of Belfast Regeneration

Belfast is a city with 289.070 inhabitants (NISRA 2019), which are divided due to a politic and
historical conflict that faces Protestants (unionist) and Catholics (nationalist). The city is nothing but
territorial manifestation of this confrontation. Getting through the streets we start to perceive those
tensions which now a days the neoliberal city has tried to conceal, forgetting the mark that the past
has left here.

To understand better my approach to this subject (Ateljevic et al., 2005) is necessary to mention my
background and position completely external to the conflict. Since I am a stranger in this city my
emotional connexion with the case of study is weaker than the one from someone who has grown
up here. Nevertheless, my interest for urban geography makes my curiosity about this issue increase,
focusing in how this social and political conflict affects to the town planning (as a geography student,
town planning and human geography, is my main interest, so I chose this module to understand the
city I am going to be living in for half a year, it´s history and how does this conflict affect to the
everyday life). Maybe because of my position as a stranger I am not the most familiarized person
with the Northern Ireland conflict, but I believe this lack of connection can also be an opportunity to
watch the confrontation through an external point of view, without forgetting of course, that are the
local residents the ones that should be given voice when it comes the time of solving these questions
through the urban planning.

This text is based on a field trip through Belfast city, so the path followed during this excursion might
affect and influence directly on the content of the essay.

The Northern Ireland conflict between unionist and nationalist has caused the city to be divided into
zones according to the predominance of one faction or another. This supposes a barrier to urban
planification which may consider these facts in order to develop the different plans. Despite this idea,
the reality is not like this. In Belfast urban policy hasn´t follow a correct regeneration plan, there´s a
lack of participatory processes which makes this system quite undemocratic. This is due to the
intervention of private entities and to the lack of control by the public administrations (according to
Marc Hackett, the architect who explained the development of New Lodge and has been working in
Belfast for over 20 years). It has been prioritized a capitalist and neoliberal regeneration in order to
make of Belfast a new city integrated in the global context and ready for tourism rather than giving
solutions to the urban issues derived from the conflict city. This can be observed in York Street, a
space where it coexists new architecture characterised by its height, and residential areas conformed
by single-family houses on a quite quiet enclave. Contrast turns really shocking, specially when you
realize that those new buildings are meant to be student´s accommodation, which implies new
necessities in the area that the actual services aren´t able to cover. This translates to an increase of
traffic which overcrowds the main street or to a re-design of the blueprint of the roads.

In relation with the saturation of certain roads, one thing that really caught my attention is the lack
of diversity of urban functions in residential areas. Maybe because here most of the houses are
single-family ones and it isn´t that common to see blocks of flats where the ground floor is destinated
to multiple business is why in the neighbourhood we visited I could only observe the residential use.
From my point of view, it would be really enriching to mix different urban programs in every single
part of the city, so that there aren´t districts exclusively residential or exclusively for offices. This
could help to avoid that depending on the hour of the day, some districts get empty, and the other
ones overcrowded (J. Jacobs, 1961) and would benefit pedestrians by making it easier to move from
their houses to their leisure or working places (reducing in the meanwhile traffic pollution).

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However, taking in to account the Northern Ireland conflict this could also have a negative impact by
promoting a lifestyle more limited to the neighbourhood and decreasing mobility in the town. This
could provoke that the few shared spaces between both sides lose their meaning as neutral meeting
places and increase segregation. This is an example that shows that urban planning in post-conflict
cities should take in to account the political context and it shouldn´t be develop a regeneration plan
in the same way as in an “ordinary city”.

Personal source; residential area next to the new Personal source: closed street due to the new
city developments blueprint of the roads

In Belfast case, urban planning may also take into account the barriers that peace walls suppose
when it comes to communication of different spaces. These walls, together with street distribution,
have the power to isolate a whole neighbourhood, which increase the possibility of creating suburbs
where people with less resources live in worst conditions than those neighbourhoods with proper
access to services and to the city centre.

The situation of urban chaos changes a bit when arriving at East Belfast, where the regeneration
model has been developed in a different way, considering the participation of citizens. In this way
habitants from this part of the city are more likely to feel the space as “theirs” (although most of the
population of this area is unionist).

A really nice example of shared spaces in East Belfast is Cs Lewis Square, a place where the local
community is able to develop multiple activities. This kind of places are the ones that bring people
together and urban planning should count with them ensuring they respond to the population
necessities.

Other examples of urban regeneration in this zone are the urban gardens, Skainos Square or Portview
Centre. In this case we do notice a mix of activities such as gymnasiums, coffee shops or even the
housing Rights. In addition, this area has the cheapest ground permitting local artist to rent their
locals here, which enriches the cultural agenda of the place (even some people see this as a threat
to their identity, which just reminds us that the Northern Ireland conflict stills being the background
of every intervention in the city).

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 Cs Lewis Square. Source: Street View from Google Maps

Conclusion:

Looking back to at all these aspects, there are a few thinks I would like to emphasize. The first
one is the importance of communication, roads should be connected between them, and it is
crucial to ensure a proper connection between the different parts of the city (West and North).
This improve of the communications stimulates the interaction between both sides of the
conflict, and that, in my personal opinion, is the first step to build a city that every habitant feels
as “theirs”.

Another aspect to mention is that the urban environment should be welcoming to citizens, so
that they enjoy the space. This can be done by giving priority to pedestrians or cutting the traffic
in some streets. Here interferes my personal background, as a geography student specially
interested in city´s adaptation and my provenance, (from Spain) where projects of
pedestrianization in favour of walking mobility are being developed successfully especially in the
north region of the country (A. Sanz 1999).

Of course, not everything can be solved just changing the architecture of the city, there´s so
much social work to do so that the mental map of the “friendly” or “unfriendly” places of each
group changes. All this might require a large amount of time and money to be changed, but at
the end, the city exists for its inhabitants, and is our labour as geographers to ensure a successful
relationship between the citizens and the space they inhabit, so that it doesn’t fell hostile in any
way.

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Bibliography

Ateljevic, I., Harris, C., Wilson, E. and Collins, F. L. (2005) Getting ‘Entangled’: Reflexivity and
the ‘Critical Turn’ in Tourism Studies', Tourism Recreation Research, 30:2, 9-21

Jacobs, J., (1992). The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: Vintage Books.

Sanz, A., (1999). Donostia Camina [online]. San Sebastián: Gabinete de Prensa, Publicidad y
Publicaciones. [Viewed 15 October 2021]. Available from:
http://www.gea21.com/archivo/donostia-camina/