Shared space in post-conflict Belfast

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the planned attempt to create 10 shared housing projects in the social rented sector in Northern Ireland. Although residential desegregation has increased since the Good Friday Agreement 1998, it remains stubbornly high in the public housing stock. The analysis draws on a series of stakeholder interviews to highlight the contradictory politics, sectarianism and resource competition embedded in the rollout of the initiative. It concludes by identifying the value of spatial encounter beyond binary identities in creating a deeper awareness of the relationship between both segregation and poverty and mixing and wealth in the post-conflict city.

KEYWORDS:

• Segregation
• integration
• shared space
• Belfast
• community relations
• encounter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Hadrien Herrault is a Doctoral student in spatial planning at the University of Tours, researching trajectories of urban change in post-conflict cities, with an empirical focus on Belfast. His recent paper in Metropolitics examined the construction of discourses around rights to the city and concepts of sharing in socio-spatial transition.

Brendan Murtagh is Professor of Urban Planning at Queen’s University Belfast. He has researched and written widely on contested cities, urban regeneration and diverse economies. His recent book, Social Economics and the Solidarity City (Routledge, 2019), draws attention to the connection between peacebuilding and community development in cities coming out of conflict.

ORCID

Hadrien Herrault http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2744-5849

Brendan Murtagh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9417-6052