Belfast will be a globally
successful, dynamic, smart 21st century regional city that is environmentally
resilient with a vibrant economic heart, bustling with sustainable mixed-use
businesses that attracts investment, talent and visitors; and is surrounded by
thriving well-connected neighbourhoods where people love to live.
A strong local economy will
support progressive, healthy, safe and vibrant communities and provides a
gateway to opportunities locally, nationally and worldwide.
This is not an adequate vision for an historic, creative, cultural
and political capital, renowned as a centre of excellence in learning, industry
and creativity.
Global
ambition. In a recent survey of millennials around
the world compiled by furnished housing aggregator Nestpick the Irish cities of
Dublin and Cork ranked 33rd and 61st among 100 worldwide
locations best suited for a millennial to live and visit. Amsterdam scored a total of 108.8 out of out
of a possible 160 with Berlin in second place on 103.9 and Munich on 102.7. The
Irish scores were 90.15 for Dublin just
behind Hamburg and head of Montpellier and 78.45 for Cork behind LA and
Copenhagen and just ahead at Kuala Lumpur.
Needless to say Belfast did not figure in the top 100 cities. Scores
were compiled against 16 criteria deemed most relevant to the demographic in
choosing where to live or visit combined into four main categories
1.
Business ecosystem
The business ecosystem score was based on
employment prospects, the vibrancy or otherwise of the start-up scene and the
cities tourism appeal, the rationale being that travelling to city is one of
the first step to relocating there.
2.
The essentials
The essentials considered housing transport,
healthcare, Internet speed and even an Apple score representing access to technical
support and calculated on the basis of the number of Apple Stores per capita.
3.
Openness
Openness scores were based on the cities
immigration tolerance, LGBT friendliness, gender equality and access to
contraception
4.
Recreation.
The recreation criteria included the price of
beer, the number of nightclubs, their opening times and the number of annual festivals
in and around the city
Whether or not you accept these rather narrow criteria as offering
a benchmark to assess great cities across the planet, it provides a profile of what
in the eyes of many constitutes a great city and if Belfast is to become
globally successful it has to recognise some of these criteria to support some 300,000
current citizens in making Belfast as good as it can be.
However Belfast doesn’t seem to be competing on a lot of these
areas and in fact in many instances is a city still in turmoil and crisis; divided
from itself through “Peace Walls” and a doughnut of transportation routes that
separates the central business district from inner-city suburbs. The increasing
suburbanisation segregates itself further out through housing costs and
resulting in some of the most egregious health and life-expectancy anomalies of
any city. Whilst this shape of a city is
not unusual in itself, the sectarian fault-lines and stark economic barriers contained
in Belfast’s unique geography have to be contended with at a local and
communitarian level. Therefore a lot
more work has to be put into this area of any local development plan or indeed
a Belfast Conversation or Agenda.
Against this backdrop Belfast could be considered to be in
somewhat of a crisis with the commercial offering not quite measuring up and
indeed with increasing rates of vacancy in our most high-profile commercial
spaces. Added to this we have a crisis in
housing that is not being alleviated in our city centre core because of the dearth
of living spaces that currently exist or that are envisaged in this LDP.
Imaginative cities, in dialogue with their citizens and learning
from the mistakes of others, should be more radical in their ambition for
embracing diverse, socially and environmentally sustainable; vibrant, mixed
economy city cores and thereby offering a more sustainable heartbeat for the
rest of the city to move to.
The alleviation of a housing crisis, of low educational attainment,
of poverty and inadequate living conditions, of limited access to healthcare,
of crushingly diverse life expectancy rates from one ward to another – all this
needs to be brought to the forefront of any plan for our city. This is not just a challenge for the Belfast
Community Plan, it is a spatial and land use challenge as well. The need to
embrace diversity of population and indeed places, necessitates that the
importance and significance of architecture, heritage and culture be brought to
bear on planning decisions.
City centre
core. For decades the relentless suburbanisation of
Belfast has reduced inner-city populations, with seldom hope of renewal. Schemes like Royal Exchange offer only
limited new living spaces while at the same time reducing the opportunity for
others to continue living in the city core. By not supporting living in the city’s core,
many of the most attractive aspects of city life may not be realised. Having a
significant diverse population living in a city centre core, not just students
or indeed so-called millennials, will allow for a vibrant night-time economy,
changing the nature of the public spaces, supporting the development of diverse
scales of economy through street markets, small shops, food outlets, grocery
outlets and centres of education and cultural amenities for a range of age
groups. If Belfast is to truly compete
on a global scale, that character needs to be realised quickly and established
in the next few years in order to seize the opportunities that it brings.
An integrated Local Development Plan needs to radically place the
public, the citizen, in the centre of the development of the city for the next
two decades. A city that so easily gridlocks through one or two road accidents
within a 10 mile radius and where rush-hour commute times are amongst the
longest in the UK, is failing the citizen. Our schools and places of learning are placed
on main routes which carry huge volumes of diesel-driven traffic. In the interests of well-being, given that
our main routes already struggle with air quality, this must be addressed. The
well-being of the city’s inhabitants cannot be served solely by the development
of leisure centres. Physical well-being
is only one aspect in the ecology of supporting well-being. Citizens and visitors alike require the
fullest range of recreational, artistic, entertaining and creative cultural and
heritage offerings in a city that is truly accessible and navigable.
Living, not just shopping. On the day, Thursday 20th April, the second largest
department store chain in the UK has announced massive closures, the reality is
that need for the gargantuan shopping centre schemes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is over. Debenhams may well be closing its store in
Belfast even. The recognition that the shopping experience has completely
changed in the last 10 years would offer any city planner the impetus to look
at different models scales and uses in the commercial redevelopment of cities
core. Whilst the various planning protections and laudable ambitions for conservation
areas, the retention of old buildings and those that offer a particular
vernacular of design, is stated in the LDP, it has not been enough to stave off
some of the worst commercial schemes of recent times. Furthermore, taking
erstwhile public city streets and making them private shopping thoroughfares is
not in the interests of city dwellers. Cities need to balance the interests of
corporations with those of its citizens. The LDP as offer in the POP would seem
to shift that equilibrium too far toward the interests of corporations and away
from the very vulnerable interests of domestic ratepayers and citizens.
Belfast’s
transport infrastructure At the turn
of the 21st century, Belfast’s range of transport infrastructure is more sparse
and dependent on one form of travel than it was 100 years earlier. 19thcentury
Belfast citizens enjoyed trams, suburban trains, buses, motorcars, bicycles and
of course horse-drawn carriages. Whilst Belfast has made strides around
offering cyclists safer and more convenient opportunity, the same cannot be
said for others to access trains and trams, with only the proliferation of
buses offering citizens who can’t afford cars, an opportunity to travel. The much-vaunted Belfast Rapid Transit System,
still offering only one route that traverses the city may not be the model best
suited to accommodate the city’s need and aspirations. Also the resolute directing of all transport
into the city centre’s new transport hub, instead of alleviating congestion,
only concentrates the highest potential volumes of people and vehicles in one
place, at the very centre of the already overly congested commercial and
business district. Logically, this will not improve that congested situation.
Belfast is a
great city.
Belfast was the first industrialised city on this island. Belfast is an ancient city, built on a narrow
fording point and reclaiming mud-flats as it expanded and developed. It is known the world over not just through
the infamy of the Titanic disaster or through the recent Troubles but both
these historic periods do sit in the imagination of many visitors to the city
as they scour the city centre looking for authenticity and artefacts,
constantly taking photos and enjoying
the fine urban grand that just about survives.
In any LDP, it is necessary to retain the authentic, architecturally
significant, ancient, publicly-accessible, historically significant buildings
and spaces. Belfast’s future is not wedded to any particular narrative, but
comes from that unique past. The first industrialised city in Ireland deserves
to be re-made into its foremost post-industrial city. This means looking at key
componentry of highly evolved, citizen-focused cities likes Ghent, Stockholm,
Copenhagen and indeed Dublin, Cork, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Sheffield etc
Shared city
In so doing, the retention of the shared urban narrative allows
all communities to enjoy a unique history.
Such a shared city, not just in terms of its anti-sectarian aspiration
but in managing the often conflicting interests of communities of place, of
occupation, of wealth and of ambition, offers citizens, ratepayers, visitors
and investors the greatest surety and security as a platform to thrive.
The retention and increase of public space, green space, and
creative space must be central to the ambition of this local development
plan. Whilst it is laudable that the
city wishes to develop “an attractive natural setting reinforcing uniqueness
and accessibility to all who live work and enjoy the city” such an ambition for
green and natural space will run contrary to the other stated commercial
ambitions.
In the centre of most great cities, apart from enjoying boulevards
and thoroughfares that are friendly to the pedestrian and cyclist alike, there
is normally an abundance of often green, public space and within it, a
recognition that children must play. The lack of provision of playgrounds and
innovation in how we promote the well-being of our younger citizens, points to
a less than integrated ambition for the local development plan.
A greater mix of uses to create a vibrant, attractive, dynamic
city must be brought to the forefront of this plan, guarding against the corporate
placemaking that hollows out an organic, characterful and unique urban landscape
and then reducing it to the bland
homogeneity of early 21st design and commercial ethics, destroying
the unique local vernacular of design and material forever.
Such obliteration of character runs completely
contrary to any historic city, because once destroyed, it cannot be remade.
A strengthened Belfast as
the regional economic driver. Currently Belfast plays host to thousands of creative professionals with
yet more due to graduate from our city universities in the coming years.
Belfast also supports some 80% concentration of arts and cultural production within
Northern Ireland, making it, without peer, a centre of excellence for the arts
and cultural industries. It is therefore inexplicable that no mention is
made of the role of the arts within the formation of an ambition for the city
for the next 20 years.
The Creative
Industries Federation, a national body for the UK's arts, creative industries
and cultural education sectors, has called on the Government to
"overhaul" its approach to business.
Business Secretary
Greg Clark has stated: "The UK's creative industry is one of our
fastest-growing sectors, employing over two million people and it contributed
nearly £90 billion to the economy in 2015.
"Through our
Industrial Strategy I want to ensure we build on this sector's strengths, which
is why we have committed to an early sector deal for the industry in our green
paper.
"Sir Peter
Bazalgette is leading this work with an independent review into how the UK's
creative sector, including our world-class music and video games industries,
can help drive prosperity across the country by developing new technologies,
capitalising on intellectual property rights and encouraging creativity from
people of all ages and backgrounds”
Surely Belfast, with its incredible tradition and ability in the arts
and creative industries, wants to exploit that local and national pre-eminence.
Imaginative land use that supports community plans can only enhance the
profile, ambition and achievement of a creative Belfast.
A smart connected and resilient place. “Belfast has the highest density of fibre network in Europe and nearly
100% of households have access to optical fibre
broadband” . The same cannot
be said for many sections in our city core including the Cathedral Quarter
however where there is currently no fibre optic availability at all.
Whilst connectivity here focuses on our
ability to access digital services, a
connected city means more to its citizens than that. Communications within the city, around the
city, across the island and indeed across Europe and the world, are key to any
city with global ambition. For a city
with a hinterland supporting a population of 1 ½ million people within a one
hour drive, communications, transport
routes and efficient transport systems are utterly crucial. On any given day the population of Belfast
swells by some 50% due to the influx of workers mostly in cars. If the
population increase aimed for reflected an increase by the same rate throughout
Northern Ireland, the impact on road use would lead to an utter sclerosis of
commuter routes. The retention of old models of traffic flow management and the
insistence in concentrating flows towards the city’s core will not adequately
manage the increasing road demands of the future.
If the city were to reimagine multiple hubs in
circular radials around the city, and find ways to manage traffic flows across
Belfast Lough at points further away from the city, then that increased
concentration of traffic would be relieved.
Belfast today and tomorrow, must retain its
character, support its current population and make preparation for greater
global demands and environmental challenge. It must realise that its history,
its built heritage and its diverse population and their diversity of interests
and abilities, are the city’s true resources. Citizens and rate-payers must see
themselves reflected in the city development. It is for the city planners to
make adjustments for the citizen, not to the citizen.
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