Urban politics in Belfast: two case studies

Urban politics in Belfast: two case studies

by Liam O’Dowd and Mike Tomlinson

I

The case of Belfast fits uneasily into the current theoretical and empirical work on urban struggles in advanced capitalist societies. Most recent studies have been able to assume state legitimacy to the extent that neither the existence of the national state itself nor its boundaries is the central focuspf political conflict. In Belfast, and in Northern Ireland (NI) generally, it is precisely this issue which has dominated local politics since the establishment of the city as a major centre of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century.

Theoretically, recent urban and regional studies provide at least two different points of departure for the analysis of urban conflict. Writers most influenced by French structuralist approaches (e.g. Castells, 1977; Cockburn, 1977) emphasize the political level, notably the state. These analyses are sustained by a considerable debate on the marxist theory of the state and by a growing body of empirical studies in the politics of social reproduction dealing with planning and popular protest. The other approach is rather less concerned with the state and starts instead from the concept of capital accumulation and the class relationships on which it rests (e.g. Harvey, 1978; Massey, 1978).

While the analysis of two small-scale protest movements built around housing and transport might suggest the first approach, the second appears more sensitive to the specific history of Belfast and NI generally. Structural- ists tend to take existing states for granted as units of analysis. It makes little sense to do this in an area which has moved in the space of sixty years from being an integral part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (with colonial attachments) through a period of semi-autonomy ( 1920-72) as a political unit within the UK (Great Britain and NI), to being administered directly once more by the central British state since 1972.

The state, accumulation and the urban problematic

I The historical framework

The history of capital accumulation in NI, as elsewhere, is not easily confined within the boundaries of nation states. By the end of the nineteenth century,

Liam O’Dowd and M . Tomlinson 73

Belfast was one of the major industrial centres of international capitalism, part of an industrial triangle incorporating Clydeside and Merseyside. The concentration of capital and labour in the city was the product of a long process of accumulation rooted in the history of colonization, long-distance trade and rural manufacturing. Its dramatic growth between 1840 and rgoo had concentrated economic and political power in the hands of a local Protestant bourgeoisie. The linen, shipbuilding and other engineering industries formed the basis for a Protestant class alliance of industrialists, merchants, landowners and a skilled working class, whose material interests rested on union with Britain and the Empire. The revival of the politico- religious Orange Order and the political mobilization against Home Rule both expressed and consolidated the alliance. Famine, combined with the commercialization of agriculture and the demand for labour, also concentrated large numbers of unskilled and semi-skilled Catholics in Belfast, raising their proportion of the population from 16% in 1808 to 34% in 1861, finally stabilizing around 25%.

Prior to the creation of the NI state in 1920, Belfast’s class structure was firmly married to sectarianism and imprinted in the geography and physical landscape of the city (Jones, 1960). Protestant and unionist power operated through a decentralized system of over 70 local authorities (which survived until 1973) dominated by Belfast Corporation. These in turn were superimposed on an intricate sectarian geography throughout NI which designated Protestant and Catholic space. Within these spaces were Protestant and Catholic businesses, churches, schools, villages and housing estates which expressed the history of plantation, capital accumulation and class relations. The partition settlement further institutionalized the dominance of the Protestant class alliance and the long-term exclusion of Catholics from the structures of a state which they rejected as illegitimate in that it symbolized their own economic, political and even military subordination.

At the very moment that the Protestant class alliance had attained its maximum political autonomy, however, the manufacturing base of the NI economy went into a long-term decline, exacerbated by international recession and the growing weakiness of British imperialism. The implications for the economic and physical structure of Belfast were far-reaching. As Harvey (1978, 124) observes, capitalist development has to:

. . . negotiate a knife edge path between preserving the exchange values of past capital investments in the built environment and destroying the value of these investments in order to open up fresh room for accumulation. Under capitalism there is a perpetual struggle in which capital builds a physical landscape appropriate to its own condition at a particular moment in time, only to have to destroy it, usually in the course of a crisis, at a subsequent point in time.

The contraction of its major industries and the political consolidation of its sectarian divisions preserved Belfast in its essentially nineteenth-century form during the interwar period. State power in the hands of the local bourgeoisie was being used not to restructure the physical basis of capital

74

accumulation but to counteract high levels of Protestant unemployment through local patronage and the extension of British social insurance schemes to the pr0vince.l The stability of the state was ensured by repression of Catholic opposition and the reproduction of sectarian divisions (Farrell,


1976).

2 Postwar planning

The second world war provided a temporary reprieve for local capitalism, but this reverted to long-term decline thereafter. As monopoly capital began to assert decisive control over production on a world scale, increasing onus was placed on the local state to intervene in renewing the productive forces. The attempts to restructure the urban environment in Belfast reflected the incrementalistic and crisis-ridden nature of this intervention. Although an integrated local development strategy incorporating communications, housing and industrial development was mooted as early as 19114.-46,2 and reaffirmed and extended by the Matthew Report in 1962, the nature of unionist hegemony in the province made such a comprehensive policy impossible. Nevertheless, the piecemeal initiatives that were successful conformed to the logic of new monopoly capital accumulation while reflecting the administrative and class tensions within the state. New industrial sites were developed on the periphery of Belfast as inner-city sites declined in significance or were abandoned (see Map I ) . Overspill public sector housing was built to service these sites by a new government agency formed to augment local authority building. Additionally, publicly subsidized private housing estates extended urban sprawl beyond the city limits. The physical structure of inner-city Protestant and Catholic communities re- mained intact until the late 1960s, however, as slum clearance plans were not implemented.

For ‘objective’ planning reasons, couched in the rhetoric of conventional terminology (growth centres, stop-lines, new towns and industrial decentral- ization), the Matthew Report had recognized and sought to develop a new area of economic activity-the Greater Belfast Region (see Map 2 ) . As planners and civil servants ostensibly ignored the sectarian and class implications of this policy, unionist politicians sought to reconcile the new regional strategy with decentralized sectarian control over local territories. The history of their failure is in large part the history of the current NI crisis. By the mid-1960s Catholic politicians and civil rights activists saw the new

Local authorities were particularly reluctant to build publicly owned housing. Belfast Corporation built only 8% of the 29 ooo houses constructed in its area between 1921-41. On 1964 figures only 13% ofhouses in NI as a whole were built in this period compared with 27% of Great Britain’s (see Weiner, 1975).

2 Four government reports were published-1g44: Housing in Northern Ireland, Cmd. 224; 1944: Location of industry, Interim Report. Cmd. 225; 1945: Planning proposalsfor the Belfast area, Interim Report, Cmd 2 2 7 ; 1946: Road communication in Northern Ireland, Interim Report, Cmd. 241.

Liam O’Dowd and M. Tomlinson 75

patterns of industrial development as being concentrated in the overwhelmingly Protestant Belfast region, to the exclusion of the predominantly Catholic areas in the west which already suffered from high rates of unemployment and out-migration. Even within the Belfast region the government-designated new towns-craigavon, Antrim, Ballymena-were

- Stopline

--- Stopline extensions

Existing motorways

Proposed - motorways

:.:.:.:.:.:. ............ 19th Century industry ......

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...... . . . . . . Post-War ............ industrial sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Map 1 Belfast: Motorways and major industrial sites

seen to be developed at the expense of Catholic west Belfast. The Protestant working class and petty bourgeoisie, on the other hand, saw the government attempts to centralize planning power as undermining the critical loci of sectarian control-i.e. the local authorities. Yet the new industries promised jobs for Protestant workers.

Transport and housing strategy illustrated both the influence of regional policy and its limits. By 1970 three motonvay spurs radiated from Belfast (see Map I ) . Meeting relatively little political opposition they facilitated the overall regional and new town strategy. Belfast Corporation was responsible,

76 Urban politics in Belfast: two case studies

however, for transport and physical redevelopment strategy in its area. The physical and political obstacles to advancement were greater here than elsewhere. The Belfast Urban Motonvay (BUM) plan, which had existed in outline form since 1945, was resurrected by the City Surveyor in 1961. By 1964, it had gained the Corporation’s assent. Subsequently, however, the Corporation employed two sets of consultants to plan a comprehensive urban motorway system and a physical development strategy which would integrate Belfast into the overall regional strategy. The final reports were published in

- Border

Map 2 Northern Ireland, including Greater Belfast Region

I 969. Physical redevelopment was essentially built around the proposed transport system and immediately began to spread planning blight in inner- city working-class areas. This was accelerated by the migration of both Protestants and Catholics to the suburbs and the new growth centres. To Catholic and Protestant communities alike the inner-city housing problem seemed to be created at least in part by the policies of Belfast Corporation (Weiner, 1975).

It was at this juncture that the politicization of the Catholic working class and the counter-politicization of the Protestant working class undermined the acquiescence of both to the Corporation and to government in general. In Belfast the crisis of state legitimacy merged with the crisis of the inner city.


The role of elected represkntatives was devalued as civil and police administration collapsed in large areas of the city. This led to direct intervention of the British state in the daily management of the crisis-the centralization of housing powers in the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) in 1971, the concentration of planning powers in the Ministry of Development (1g73), later to become the Department of the Environment (DOE), the abolition of the local authorities and their replacement by 26 relatively powerless district council^.^ Over 400 community groups emerged in Belfast after 1970 in response to the three-cornered conflict between Protestants, Catholics and the British army. Many were based on local vigilante committees and paramilitaries (Darby, 1976). Although the authorities held two public inquiries into the first phase of the motorway and the rest of the Belfast Urban Area Plan in 1969 and 1973 respectively, motorway construction was halted under the threat of direct action by Protestant and Catholic paramilitaries.

By 1974 it appeared that the government had finally abandoned the motorway scheme in response to the international recession, the energy crisis and local opposition. The ministry appointed the original consultants to review the whole transport strategy. The review was published in 1976 after consultation with the newly constituted Belfast Council, which in turn had briefly heard submissions from community groups. Although the community groups favoured the upgrading of public transport the Council voted for the review strategy which favoured private transport and a scaled-down motorway system. In March 1977 the DOE announced yet another public enquiry which sat for 46 days between May and September. Between March and May community groups began to mobilize against the new strategy. The Community Groups Action Committee on Transport (CGAC) was formed as an umbrella group to coordinate opposition to the new strategy. They found that most of the local community groups had thought that the scheme had been shelved years previously (CGAC, 1979, 6). The stage was set for the confrontation described below.

3 Housing-the on.gins of Poleglass

The sectarian allocation of housing by local authorities had been one of the main complaints of the early civil rights movement. In Belfast the development of overspill estates and the suburbanization of industry had slightly modified residential segregation. As sectarian conflict escalated between 1970 and 1972 this tendency was sharply reversed. Catholics crowded back into the west Belfast ghetto. Darby and Morris (1974) estimated that between 8000 and 15 ooo Belfast families had to move between 1969 and

The centralization of housing and planning powers was a response to demands for civil rights. Ironically the Matthew Report and elements within the Unionist party had advocated many of these measures prior to the outbreak of the crisis as a means of attracting foreign investment to the province.


1973. Eighty per cent of these were Catholic although Catholics comprised only 26% of the population of the city. The newly formed NI Housing Executive asked the DOE to release land to meet the housing crisis in the west of the city. The Poleglass-Lagmore scheme for 4000 houses (and 18000 people) was proposed by the Executive in 1974. The new scheme involved a breaking of the Matthew stop-line around the urban area and the extension of Catholic west Belfast into the nearby, overwhelmingly Protestant, Lisburn council area. There was widespread local opposition to the scheme from Protestant politicians and residents. By the time the Department of Environment had announced a public inquiry into the scheme, the scheme had been reduced in size to 2000 houses accommodating 8000 people.

I1 Politics become ‘consultation’ through public inquiry

By 1974 the British state had failed to reinstall a form ofgenerally acceptable devolved government in the face of a Loyalist general strike and the continuing IRA campaign. Thereafter, a more coherent administrative cum military management of the province began to emerge as direct rule from Westminster no longer appeared to be a temporary expedient. The enforced reorganization of local state structures between 1971 and 1974 was now confirmed and followed by an attempt to impose a British style reformist politics informed by an ideology of fragmenting the recalcitrant Northern I reland problem into its criminal, economic, political and social components. At an instrumental level, public participation in the discussion of these discrete questions (excluding the criminal or military issue) was encouraged. The Poleglass and Transport Inquiries in 1976 and 1977 respectively are examples of a more general attempt to mobilize consensus around areas of British state intervention.

In both Inquiries the state (in the form of the Northern Ireland Depart- ment of Environment-DOE) presented itself as a neutral arbiter over and above the competing interests involved; the Inquiries had to be seen not to favour any sectional or sectarian interests and they even had to appear to have a certain autonomy from the Department whose creature they were. In his opening statement, the chairman of the Poleglass Inquiry (PI) , for example, reminded participants that the Planning Appeals Commission was ‘fiercely independent of the government’, a comment which was not challenged. Likewise, the Transport Inquiry (TI) inspector said that his terms of reference were completely open and ‘afforded an opportunity to the people of Belfast, which was unique in these islands, of participating in planning decisions’ (Lavery, 1978, I 57). The legitimacy of the DOE depended on more than the appearance of neutrality and its professed willingness to involve the public in decision-making, however. T,he Department, in securing a satisfactory outcome for the inquiry, was necessarily engaged in legitimating itself as the competent planning authority. It laid claim to such authority by


demonstrating the complexities of land zoning, motonvay routing, housing redevelopment, and its technical ability to manage them in socially appropriate ways. This planning ideology presented political issues as technical problems behind a gauze of professional rhetoric, in practice tending to bureaucratize ‘political’ decisions. Although this ideology faced serious challenge in Belfast, it imbued the DOE’S presentation at the beginning of each Inquiry, providing the overall framework for the subsequent articulation of issues.

The state’s structuring of the issues was also realized through a legalistic method of handling the day-to-day proceedings. Witnesses were called and examined to make the case for the DOE and then cross-examined by objectors. Similarly, participants attempting to oppose the plans and wishing to construct an alternative case were required to put up their own witnesses who were in turn cross-examined by council for the DOE. The layout likewise matched that of a courtroom with the judge’s bench raised above floor level and clerks, transcribing the proceedings, sitting below. There was no defendant in the dock as such, but the DOE provided a permanent backcloth of maps, plans and other documents pertaining to the case under consideration. Cross-examination tended to be prefaced with a series of questions designed to establish the authority and credibility of the witness, a tactic which served to separate ‘expert testimony’ from ‘point of view’.

One objector, illustrating the partiality of the TI, cited the following, based on British experience:

An inquiry into objections to road schemes proposed by the Department is a one-sided contest. The promoter of the contest proposes the scheme and is also the sponsor of one of the teams. He draws up the schedule and hires the stadium which. happens to have a dressing-room for his team only. He lays out the pitch on a steeply sloping ground with only one goal, a t the lower end, which happens to be the end his team is shooting at. He draws u p the rules and brings his own referee. He equips the referee with notes for guidance which insist that the ref should on no account allow the opposition to discuss any of these conditions, especially the absence of a goal a t the opposite end of the pitch. All appeals concerning the relatively trivial matters to be discussed must be couched in a language which assumes that the promoter’s team is always right (TI, Day 24, page 73).

I Tern of reference

The terms of reference for the TI, as laid down by the DOE, specifically excluded consideration of real effects in the sense of the plans’ impact on individual properties. Instead, participants were directed to be concerned with a more nebulous definition of ‘transportation strategy’. However, the parameters of debate were structured by the now considerable history of the motorway issue and had been decided by the planning consultants and the DOE in the 1976 review.

The DOE put forward three ‘different’ transportation options. Each conformed to the cut in the transport budget from E305 million to Ego million for the period 1978 to 1986. One was heavily roads-oriented (labelled the ‘A’ or Red strategy) allocating only 9% of the budget to public transport-i.e.


buses and railways. Another (the ‘B’ or Blue strategy) emphasized investment in public transport w$ich accounted for 56% of the total. The third (‘E’ or Yellow strategy) proposed a mixture of the previous two allocating 33% to buses and railways. From the outset, the community groups (CGAC) claimed that the choice was apparent rather than real, and that inner-city streets such as Hamill Street, were going to be demolished anyway against local wishes. Indeed, prior to the Inquiry, the DOE had announced that the elements common to all three strategies were to be implemented immediately. This included the MI/M2 link which had been a part of transport plans since the I 960s.

The terms of the PI were similarly policed by the DOE. This inquiry was of a type, however, which sought a decision on the implementation of a development plan, rather than the ratification of ‘planning guidelines’. The PI was thus handled by the existing planning decisions appeals body (the Planning Appeals Commission for NI) which was directed to hear ‘relevant objections’ to the proposed housing development. The development was designed to meet the crisis of housing in west Belfast-a Catholic housing problem. The DOE

saw the new estate as necessary to accommodate families from existing redevelopment areas and to relieve overcrowding. The Poleglass scheme was regarded as an urgent priority, hence the DOE wished the Inquiry to approve simultaneously the development plan, the vesting of the required land, and the alteration of road lines in the vicinity of the scheme.

2 The participants

Public inquiries in Northern Ireland are not the result of popular pressure in the same sense as they are seen to be in Britain. There, they were meant to be an expression of pluralist democracy in action at a time when the British state was massively involved in restructuring the built environment of major cities, often in the face of local opposition. In Northern Ireland British practice was being superimposed on an area which lacked even a fagade oj pluralist politics. Thus, major forces in local politics were not represented a1

Table 1 Inquiry participation: a summary

Participants Transport Poleglass

% of total Inquiry

Department of Environment Community groups Political parties Organized capital Organized labour Interest groups Others Total

39 34 7

4 5 8

100

a

13 1

65 0 0

12 9

100

Liam 0 ’Dowd and M. Tomlinson 8 I

the Inquiry. These included legal forces such as the British Army and Protestant paramilitaries and illegal forces such as the Provisional IRA.

Certainly, interest groups and individuals were represented as they would be in Britain, but the major protagonists testified to the durability of the ‘respectable’ local politics of class and sectarianism articulated within the trappings of British administrative practice. Table I crudely summarizes participation based on percentage number of pages in the verbatim trans- cripts attributable to the various interests.

O n the housing issue, the main objectors to the government’s plan were the political parties representing the sectarian dividions in Belfast. The TI, on the other hand, was dominated by community representatives seeking to articulate a new politics in response to both state intervention and traditional sectarian politics.

I11 The articulation of issues

The central issue, as articulated at the PI, was whether a large Catholic housing estate should be built ‘on Protestant land handed down through many generations’ (PI, Day I I , page 104) in the staunchly Loyalist Lisburn Council area. A subsidiary issue centred on the physical and socioeconomic amenities which the estate should provide for the disadvantaged Catholic population:

. . . the proposed scheme does not go far enough to meet the needs of the working class people of West Belfast and only the development of the whole Poleglass-Lagmore area . . could result in the provision of decent housing and employment for the maximum number of people (PI, Day g, page 56).

In the TI, the objectors were chiefly concerned with the critical appraisal, and even the rejection of, the Belfast transportation strategy. Four themes recurred: a ) the alleged preference of planners for ‘roads rather than houses’. This unearthed the previous history of Belfast planning-the blighting, redevelopment and dispersal of a large part of inner Belfast communities. The issue was made concrete by a resident of Hamill Street:

We were told that no matter which road or which strategy you take, our houses are going to come down, which we think is very unfair. We are not re-development or slum-clearance. It is only for a new road for transport. . . . We must act to save our homes. We have as much say in the roads as the people up the Malone Road. We are ordinary working class (TI, Day

b) the bias of the planners towards private rather than public transport- summarized by the comment: ‘Apparently, when the DOE pronounces on transport, it speaks with the mouth of the road engineer’ (TI, Day I , page 2 5 ) . c) the resources and environmental implications of the Red strategy. d ) the challenge to the impartiality of the inquiry itself.

2, page 8 ) .


The Table below presents a crude summary of the views expressed by the foremost participants at the TI on the main points at issue.

Table 2 Support for the technocratic options-Transport Inquiry

Alternative' Red Blue Yellow

CGAC Inst. Highway Engineers SDLP Harbour Commissioners NlLP Inst. Civil Engineers NI Transport Holding Co BTUC CBI NI Railways ICTU Roads Transport Assoc. DOE Rep. Clubs Harbour Commissioners GWBCA NI Chamber Commerce and

Industry Lilliput Laundry Royal SOC. Ulster Architects

Note: See Glossary (Appendix 1 ) for definition of terms. (*'Alternative' refers to any case which attempted to go beyond the three official plans, primarily with respect to public transport provision.)

The main concern of the Harbour Commissioners, the CBI and the Chamber of Commerce was the delay in implementing former roads plans, especially the M I /~a /harbour link. This was causing the under-utilization of vehicies and over-employment of men in the road haulage industry. Some Trade Union representatives agreed on the link, which they thought would revitalize the harbour, currently losing business to Larne and Warrenpoint (near Newry). Although pushing strongly for the Red strategy, the industrial and commercial interests did not provide clear evidence of how they, or anyone else, would benefit. Their attitude to the inquiry was distinctly casual, suggesting that participation was neither necessary in the past nor in the present, as their case was being put adequately by the state in any event. The Chamber of Commerce representative did remind the Inspector, however, that the environmental cum political lobby had too much influence.

In general, trade union speakers were critical of the DOE'S approach. At no time did they articulate interests directly contrary to those of the industrial and commercial interests. The ICTU were concerned with employment prospects in transport and the jobs of their members. There was a difference of emphasis between the Belfast Trades Council and the ICTU. The former wanted a rerouting of the MI/M:! link to better protect and develop inner-city communities; the latter advocated the link on the planned route, while emphasizing the development of public transport. The ICTU also suggested the setting up of a Transport Review Authority to make proposals and to comment on plans. This would comprise the DOE, employers, trade unionists, district councillors and community groups. The Inspector recommended this suggestion in his final report, but the DOE later rejected it on the grounds that there were enough consultative groups already. The trade unions were attributed much legitimacy at the Inquiry and their

Liam 0 ’Dowd and M. Tomlinron 83

contribution termed ‘exceedingly helpful and constructive’ by the Inspector. This was in part due to the fact that their specific suggestions were answerable in technocratic terms and indeed, in several instances, easily rejected in these terms also.

The Transport Inquiry posed the question of the state’s involvement in the management of everyday life in a much more general sense than did the PI.

The class implications of transport strategy were posed starkly on several occasions, both in individual contributions to debate and in the CGAC’S

challenge to the legitimacy of the Inquiry procedure per se. At times, the whole question of the state’s long-term planning of Belfast was attacked:

You ask what does a working man tell you of conditions and why they don’t want roads in their own districts. Now I live in the Dock area and, as you know, the Dock area was destroyed, just like that-flattened-people were sent left, right and centre. Now these people were ordinary working-class people. They were sent to out-lying districts. They were working and earning just the same money at that time and sent out to outside urban areas at the end of the bus terminus (TI, Day I , page 36).

Several objectors pointed out the degree to which working-class people had been manipulated in the interests of planning and roads:

. . . they were thrown from one part of this town to another. They are living in high rise flats with five or six children in a two-bedroom flat 12 storeys up. We go then to the New Lodge Road area where people were dumped into flats. They are going to live with this motonvay passing as close as 30 or 40 feet of their homes (TI, Day 2 , page 10) .

IV The roads lobby (public vs private transport)

The interests of capital in roads-oriented strategies was a major plank in the community group’s objections, but was not mentioned by any of the official trade union representatives. The main specification of the lobby was based on English rather than Northern Irish experience. John Tyme (an English anti-motonvay campaigner) alleged that the ‘lobby had conspired to destroy the representative and legislative function of Parliament in transport matters’ (Day I , page 3 1 ) . The roads lobby consisted of an alliance between industrial and commercial interests, notably the British Roads Federation, and civil servants in the DOE. Through a combination of intensive lobbying and by controlling the information available to MPS, they had rendered Parliament irrelevant to transport matters.

Many of the objectors held that the whole history of planning showed a bias towards roads rather than public transport (e.g. the CGAC, Republican Clubs and GWBCA). They pointed out that an urban motonvay was mooted and agreed in principle by the old Belfast Corporation before they decided to have a comprehensive land use plan. Some argued that the consultants had a history of professional bias towards roads, and that their plan favoured NI’S

version of the ‘roads lobby’. All the alternative strategies advanced by the objectors favoured considerably more investment in public transport. The

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trade unions, concerned for members’ jobs, advocated more expenditure on buses and the building of a new cross-town rail link. Additionally, various degrees of restraint on car use in the inner city were suggested. The most extreme variant of this proposal was advanced by the Republican Clubs. They argued for rigid traffic management measures, including control of car parking. However, their proposal to restrict car access to inner Belfast led them to propose considerable road building on the outskirts of Belfast, an argument which the Inspector and the DOE found inconsistent with their generally anti-roads position.

A minor theme in the public versus private transport debate centred on the Black Taxis-a locally run service originating in west Belfast during the ‘troubles’. This raised a contradiction for the more community-oriented objectors-although the taxis were a ‘community’ service, their existence seemed to undermine the efficient operation of the publicly run bus system. Among the supporters of public transport, only the CGAC failed to condemn the taxis. The ICTU were among their most vehement critics. Supporting the position of the GWBCA and the Republican Clubs, their representative went on to add:


. . . I am criticizing the manner in which it [the black taxi service] is operated and its connections with paramilitary groups, real or imaginary. No one will ever satisfy my bus members that there is not a connection. I get very angry when I see the figures given to me by the lads Last year 427 buses were destroyed. How many taxis were destroyed? As a citizen I feel angry about that because those buses cost a lot ofmoney. It shows quite clearly that there is a link between those who burn buses and those who do not burn black taxis. I am not saying that people should go out and bum black taxis . . (n Day 42, page 34).

In his final report, the Inspector strongly recommended that the black taxis be eliminated and this was noted favourably by the DOE in their accompanying statement on the transport strategy.

I Environmental considerutions

.4 wide spectrum of individuals, community groups and other interest groups argued that a strategy favouring private transport also encouraged pollution, the destruction of the visual environment, high accident rates and a wastage of scarce energy resources. These arguments were listened to with interest by the DOE and the Inspector, but they did not influence their final assessments of strategy to any degree, presumably on the grounds that the Westminster government had already dealt with these issues by drastically reducing the overall transport budget.

2 Procedural issues

The challenge to the impartiality of the TI, and therefore to its legitimacy, led to a breakdown of normal rules of procedure from the outset. These were reestablished but, as the Inspector noted, ‘the Inquiry ended almost as it had


begun, with disruption on the last day from the Action Committee’ (Lavery, 1978, 10). The scene was set on Day I by the demands ofJohn Tyme for an adjournment sine die, and of the CGAC for a lengthy recess to allow for the presentation of a fourth and ‘genuine alternative’ which would be more democratically based than those advanced by the DOE. Disruption and public intervention eventually led to the occupation of the Inquiry Hall to the great interest of the media. On three occasions, the Inspector and his Assessors withdrew from the hall and held the proceedings in camera. By Day 4, however, a number of real and apparent concessions had been made by the DOE to the objectors. It formally agreed to a moratorium on ongoing roadworks common to its three strategies. I t also accepted a defacto widening of the terms of reference and a future adjournment to allow for the consideration of a fourth strategy. (In fact, on Day 24 the DOE later opposed an adjournment on the grounds that the CGAC’S bonajdes were suspect because of their lack of constructive participation in the Inquiry.)

The internal structure and management of the Inquiry and the nature of the challenge to normal procedure expressed in themselves the class relationships underlying the whole transport issue. Order and procedure rested in the final analysis on the participants’ unequal access to resources, on the history of transport planning in Belfast and the parameters set up by the DOE. The DOE had overwhelming control over technical and legal resources- a body of expertise and information resulting from the public financing of the planning and transport consultants over a period of twelve years. The Department’s expert witnesses dominated the proceedings except during the procedural arguments interspersed throughout. Their technocratic presentation of evidence confronted each of the objectors. The more radical and comprehensive alternative proposals were, the more the objectors’ lack of overall knowledge and expertise was at issue. While the Department was willing to supply the community groups with information, it refused to help finance independent research into alternative strategies, either by the community groups themselves or by consultants engaged by them. Despite lack of resources and expertise, the objectors were continually asked to submit written proofs of evidence in advance of oral submissions.

The procedural rules of the Inquiry involved compliance with a legal format. Only three contributing groups were legally represented-the Harbour Commissioners, the SDLP and the GWBCA (represented by the solicitor who acted for the CGAC at the outset of the Inquiry). In his final report, the Inspector praised the contribution of the legal representatives, notably that of the GWBCA, and advocated that their reasonable legal costs be met from public funds. This was rejected by the Department. The Inspector had entered the caveat, however, that if all objectors were to have free legal aid, Inquiries would go on forever (Lavery, 1978, 190). Each objector’s proposal was subjected to searching cross-examination. The objectors, with the exception of the GWBCA, lacked legal representation and therefore did not undertake any systematic cross-examination of the expert witnesses. The

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GWBCA’S solicitor did, in fact, present the bulk of his case through cross- examination, but had to agree to be cross-examined himself at one stage. Previously, the Department’s legal representatives had explicitly rejected an attempt to cross-examine them, on grounds of legal propriety.

The Inspector attempted to establish the legitimacy and ‘authenticity’ of the participants a t the outset of the major submissions. In the case of the trade union and business representatives, this was accomplished rapidly. Likewise, the Sandy Row Development Association was seen to be an ‘. . . authentic section of working-class people’ who wanted a speedy resolution of the transport issue and an end to uncertainty (Day 24, page 70) . However, the authenticity and representativeness of the CGAC was at issue throughout, particularly insofar as they challenged the legitimacy of the Inquiry. The Inspector’s final report seeks at some length to establish retrospectively the legitimacy of the whole exercise by dismissing that of the CGAC. Describing the CGAC members, he judged them:


. . . for the most part to be young, articulate, well-educated persons, some of whom are graduates in social science then engaged in community work (Lavery, 1978, 144).

Noting their claim ‘to represent the working-class communities of Belfast and to be the authentic voice of these communities’, he added: ‘I can recognize members of the Belfast working-class communities when I see them’.

. , . These university graduates were by no means typical and I suspect they were very largely self-appointed. In the course of the Inquiry I heard persons who could be said without doubt to speak on behalf of these communities. I had no such conviction when I was listening to these members of the Action Committee (.Lavery, 1978, 144).

He argued that they had done ‘their utmost to destroy public confidence in the Inquiry and to frustrate its work’ (Lavery, 1978, 145). He went on to argue:

. , . These tactics are easily recognisable as being based on an ideology which does not accept the political or economic system operating in the United Kingdom. To some of them the Inquiry was merely part of a larger system which must be destroyed. They were not interested in any short-term benefits that the Inquiry might bring to the suffering people of Belfast. Indeed by permitting the Inquiry to appear to bring benefits to the people they might merely have been prolonging a system that they despised (Lavery, 1978, 145).

He acknowledged that the disrupters had attracted ‘a considerable amount of not unsympathetic comment’, but believed that the DOE could have done nothing to avoid the disruption ‘short perhaps of handing over the Govern- ment of NI to the disrupters’ (Lavery, 1978, 145).

3 The Poleglass Inqui7y

The positions taken on the Poleglass issue are set out in Table 3. In some instances, the unionist lobby not only rejected the scheme but demonstrated alternative ways of meeting the housing problem (though individual Lisburn

Liam O’Dowd and M. Tomlinson 87

councillors felt no need to do this). Inhabitants of west Belfast and their political representatives argued consistently for the original Poleglass- Lagmore development (twice the size of what was currently offered), but also suggested minor modifications of the DOE’S current plans, such as increased nursery provision.

Table 3 Positions at Poleglass Inquiry

Participants

Original House Approval/ Poleglass-

Rejec- else- minor modi- Lagmore tion where fications scheme

Alliance Party - Belfast Council Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) Lisburn Council Republican Clubs - Social Democratic & Labour Party (SDLP) Dunmurry Golf Club Glengoland ratepayers - Twinbrook community groups -

-

* = support for position

4 This bald statement is taken from a Lisburn councillor’s summary of evidence on the last day of the Inquiry. Although it lacked any relevant planning powers, the Council had hired planning consultants (at a cost of E I o 000) to appraise the DOE plan and to prepare a technocratically viable alternative. It accepted that there was a housing problem in west Belfast, but contested the DOE’S recognition ofa ‘Catholic problem’ as well as its estimate of what that problem was. The stop-line, it argued, had to be held and the ‘view’ preserved-if Poleglass went ahead ‘there will be a further loss of amenity for those who live in the Southern Valley’ (which contains the most expensive housing in Belfast) (PI, Day I , page 52). The Council’s cross- examination dwelt on the calculation of housing need, i.e. on the problems of estimating supply and demand. If the DOE was able to revise their calculations downwards by half in the eighteen months which separated its first and second development plan, the Council appeared to believe that further manipulation of the figures could achieve a greater reduction. It shifted the burden of the argument towards the imputed vagaries of Catholics’ motives to migrate and to aspire to housing and social facilities beyond what was reasonable for the state to provide. The Council produced its own estimate of need (about one-third of the DOE’S) and claimed this could be satisfied inside both west Belfast and the stop-line. The representative of

%leglass will not be built!’

88

Dunmurry Golf Club and 3675 local objectors (Pringle) agreed that Poleglass was irrelevant if Catholics could be compelled to move out of west Belfast or were rehoused at densities close to the 254-persons-per-acre, recently achieved in the city of Westminster. But the DOE pointed out that Lisburn Council’s alternative site was owned by the Catholic Church and ‘protracted negotiations’ would be necessary to acquire it.

Belfast Council’s cross-examination covered much the same ground, but concentrated particularly on the original aims of the stop-line and migration. One alternative to Poleglass was ‘to be ruthless about the stop line and to say to people in that area ofwest Belfast, “Sorry . . . ifyou wish to have a house of your own you will have to go to the various growth centres”’ (Day 2,

page 47). It had to be accepted, Pringle added, that planning was a form of coercion. creating the political question of whom to coerce. In the 1960s, Stormont and the local authorities had been united on the enforcement of the stop-line, but now ‘the trouble is that all planning and housing functions are in the hands of central government’ (Day 3, page 14). By situating Poleglass close to Protestant settlements, the policy of dispersing Catholics and Protestants to growth centres was now changed to one of allowing Catholics to chase Protestants from south and west Belfast.

Lisburn Council was particularly concerned to refute press reports that its opposition was ‘political and sectarian’ and claimed to be basing their arguments ‘solely on planning considerations put forward on responsible, reasoned and temperate grounds’ (Day 12, page 32). On the other hand, Belfast Council attempted to assume a technocratic mantle by broadening physical planning into social planning-‘. , . in some senses this has not been a planning Inquiry but an Inquiry into the effects of the political and civil disturbances in the city’ (Day 12, page 34). Its case referred to the stop-line breach as ‘perpetuating the lack of balance between the city and the remainder of Northern Ireland’ and resulting in a Catholic town which would foster ‘a ghetto attitude of mind’ and reduce ‘mixing the two sections of the community’. Furthermore, Poleglass might create a serious outbreak of sectarian violence-‘there is evidence of threat that, if Poleglass is to go ahead, Twinbrook (a nearby Catholic public housing estate) will be destroyed and the people who will go into Poleglass will be driven out’ (Day 12, pages 34-35). The potential Poleglass population should be rehoused in the inner city, rapidly becoming an ‘empty shell’, and the DOE ought to solicit expert testimony from the security forces ‘as to whether it would be a greater danger to have families housed at Poleglass rather than in the (Protestant) Shankill area’ (Day 12, pages 37-38).

Individual Lisburn councillors saw west Belfast as a ‘social cancer’ spreading, with the assistance of the government, across the Protestant stronghold of Lisburn District Council. It was well known that the Twinbrook estate was a ‘terrorist refuge’ (Day 12, page 49) and its residents illustrated perfectly the Catholic propensity towards civil disobedience and debt. The DUP declared:



Violence and terrorism will increase unless the British Government change their security policy and there is no indication that they will. Over a period of time new housing estates in the West Belfast area have become ghettoes. . West Belfast is the largest single terrorist breeding ground in Ulster. The planners are proposing to increase it (Day 12, pages g and 12) .

Much energy was devoted to spelling out the consequences of Poleglass. In a somewhat contradictory fashion, it was asserted on the one hand that ‘many hundreds, if not thousands, of Protestant families will be forced to leave their area’ (Day I I , page I O ~ ) , and, on the other, ‘the Protestant people of the area have had enough. . . . If the scheme goes ahead there will probably be a serious cleaning-out operation at Twinbrook’ (Day I I ,

page 1 0 6 ) . There were other references to a Protestant backlash-‘the trouble which we are experiencing now could look like a picnic by com- parison with what might happen if the Poleglass scheme were allowed to go ahead’.

. . . Poleglass is going to become the cockpit of conflict. If the British Government and the authorities want to take on the Loyalists in the North of Ireland on the whole issue of the breakdown of law and order and the sell-out in treachery to which Loyalists have been subjected during past years then let it come. There could not be a better place to fight (Day 1 1 , page 1 2 1 ) .

Not all were couched in such pugnacious tones. In a short submission, the Royal Black Chapter (an Orange institution) warned, ‘the District Chapter has a membership of about 1250 and its members strongly resent any intervention in this area’, while the Orange Order agreed that Poleglass would become ‘a focal point for confrontation and violence’ (Day 12, page 18; Day 10, page 1 0 ) .

Even the most vehement of critics felt a need to justify their position in anticipation of accusations of blind sectarianism. The councillors were able to refer to the groundswell of opinion which, as elected representatives, they were in touch with daily, and some claimed to be speaking for Catholics as well as Protestants. For instance, one speaker juxtaposed the statement, ‘I am not saying that all those who live in Twinbrook are members of the IRA, but they are Republicans to the extent that they are out for an all-Ireland republic’, with the following: ‘It should be made clear that I speak not only for the majority community but also for many Roman Catholics’ (Day I I , page 1 2 0 ) . The Deputy Mayor of Lisburn Council was somewhat less gratuitous. Claiming to speak for a great number of people, ‘in a way which might seem very simple, crude or down to earth’, he argued:

. . . this land is in an elevated position overlooking Belfast and the Lagan Valley complex. From a military point ofview, it would be a very good stronghold and a very hard position to take. It would be opportune for them to have it.

He did not want to be labelled a bigot, however, explaining that not all Roman Catholics saw Poleglass in terms of its military potential, but, unfortunately, ‘the people have been manipulated by the IRA. . . . We


sympathize with these people because in many instances they have to comply with the demands made on them’ (Day I I , page 107) .

At times, therefore, the technocratic veneer on the objectors’ position was very thin. As Pringle summed up the position, ‘the need for Poleglass arises solely because of Catholic unwillingness to live anywhere other than in West Belfast’ (Day 12, page 44).

5 The ‘inadequacy’ of Poleglass

The remaining objectors, with the exception of the Alliance Party, called on the DOE to expand Poleglass to its original size. Estimates of school and nursery facilities were criticized for being understated, as was the failure to define social and recreational provision. A representative of the Republican Clubs presented evidence on unemployment in west Belfast and an analysis of total government provision of industrial sites and training facilities in the area. He argued that ‘the greater West Belfast and Dunmurry area (population 150 000) is served by a mere IOO acres of undeveloped industrial land, while Lisburn and Antrim (population 50 000) have nearly 500 acres . . . and a history of unemployment of only 2.8%’ (Day 9, page 59). The DOE had no grounds to cut back the industrial sites in the scheme from 122 acres to 65 acres.

The SDLP concentrated on proving that the need for housing was far greater than the DOE appreciated, but welcomed the pragmatic recognition of ‘a Catholic housing problem in West Belfast-forgive me for using the term’ (Day 9, page 2 ) . The leader of the Party was called as a witness and he quoted an unemployment rate for the Ballymurphy estate of 45%:

. . . apparently that is higher than in any other housing estate in Europe. West Belfast, whether deliberately or otherwise-and sometimes I have been inclined to think it was the former-has always been neglected industrially. It has never had any industries (Day g,

He was questioned on the polarization of housing and the reluctance of Catholics to migrate to Craigavon. He claimed that intimidation, mainly by Protestants, and sectarianism accounted for both phenomena. At the end of his evidence, Fitt volunteered this statement: ‘Certain political figures do not want a certain type of elector moving into their areas because it might damage their majorities’ (Day 9, page 44).

As indicated, the unionist lobby openly discredited Twinbrook as a terrorist stronghold on a number of occasions. The Twinbrook Housing Action Group responded by explaining that ‘the vast majority of the residents within the estate simply want to lead a quiet and peaceful life’. It accepted that people from the estate ‘appear in court charged with offences connected with the current troubles’, but these were usually teenagers for whom social and recreational facilities were ‘grossly insufficient’. Such problems were an argument f o r Poleglass: ‘We are convinced that our young people are being abandoned to the men of violence by state neglect, and this

Page 33).

Liam O’Dowd and M. Tomlinson g I

is why the original Poleglass development plan should go forward in its totality’ (Day 9, page 5 I ) . The Tenants’ Association representative rejected the unionist allegations altogether-

. . . unlike th‘e councillors who have spoken, I have not mentioned religion, bigotry or anything like that. During my five years in Twinbrook I have not known anyone to be intimidated, shot or forced out of his home . . . However, I was intimidated out of Rathcoole [a largely Protestant estate in north Belfast] (Day I I , page I 18).

The Alliance Party councillor who attended the Inquiry welcomed Poleglass as ‘the only answer in the short term to the problem of intimidation’ (Day 8, page 58). The ethics and standards of planning were purely academic in the context of ‘gangs of thugs and bully boys’ bent on intimidation. He was critical of the roads plan for the area in the interests of community relations, advancing the thesis that:

. . . in every period of sectarian unrest in Northern Ireland roads have not solved problems; they have exacerbated them. Roads institutionalise tribal frontiers and act as temporary dams for social pressures. In times of conflict, what integration there is is destroyed quickly and the road becomes an unscalable boundary wall in times of peace (Day 8, page 62).

The DOE faced one major problem at the Inquiry. This concerned the revised estimates for housing need on which the scale and design of the new scheme depended. The Department was extensively cross-examined for the purpose of uncovering the documentary basis of the calculation. It was accused of concealing evidence, not releasing files, failing to provide proofs of evidence and ‘bluffing’ its way through questioning. It appeared that the cross- examiners (notably Belfast and Lisburn Councils) were determined to prove that the Department had cut the original Poleglass-Lagmore scheme because of political pressurebrought by themselves. Indeed, it admitted that objections to the scheme had been taken into account. The major change in housing need supposedly arose from the drop in the birth-rate between 1974 and 1976, and from migration. The Commissioners criticized the Depart- ment because ‘vital information on such matters as the addresses of people on the waiting list, the numbers, size, age, condition and locations of bricked up houses, and the present rate of migration was not available. Com- missioners could neither understand nor accept the Department’s explanation for the reduction of the estimated 4000 houses in the Poleglass-Lagmore scheme to 2000 in the present scheme’ (Poleglass Report, 1978,2). However unconvincing its case, the DOE representatives weathered the twelve days of the Inquiry, achieving the outcome they desired.

V Summary and conclusions

Both Inquiries represent concrete instances of the politics of social reproduction and state intervention in Belfast. These politics were advanced to the extent that decisions already taken by the central state and the local DOE

had now been ‘exposed’ to public scrutiny. In the case of the Transport

92

Inquiry, the M I I M P Harbour Link was confirmed, meeting the demands of business and some union interests. It was realigned and reduced in size. The inner ring road was redrawn to avoid the demolition of Hamill Street in the short run at least. More emphasis was placed on public transport mainly through the decision to build a cross-town rail link (DOE, 1978). Similarly, in the Poleglass report, the DOE plans were confirmed but not without attracting the criticism from the Appeals Commission that the scheme was the ‘softest option’ open to the government, probably leading to ‘all kinds of problems for the years ahead . . . creating and extending a polarized community’. The Commission made one major concession to the anti- Poleglass lobby by accepting the argument that the 65 acres zoned for industry was excessive (although the DOE later rejected this recommen- dation). According to the Commission, to develop industry within Poleglass precluded the possibility of cross-sectarian workforces in the futurecut t ing the development sites was the Commission’s gesture to ‘community relations’ in an area of the city which has had chronically high unemployment rates.

In the case of Poleglass, the British state sought legitimacy through compromise between Protestant protest and its explicit commitment to ameliorate Catholic housing conditions in west Belfast. In the event the compromise did not contain the politics of housing as the unionist protest gathered momentum after the Inquiry, forcing a mobilization of the army and the police to prevent a threatened march on a Catholic housing estate in nearby Twinbrook. On this occasion, the state appeared to oppose a militant sectarian campaign on the issue, although pressure in advance of the Inquiry appears to have succeeded in drastically reducing the size of the new estate. The DOE planners did not create (nor do they wish to create) sectarian apartheid in Belfast. I t is forced upon them. Its maintenance has moved from being a matter of active policy under the old unionist local authority system to being a matter of pragmatic recognition of ‘reality’ under direct British administration.

Whereas the Poleglass scheme involved the reproduction of labour power (already in oversupply), the transport issue was directly concerned with renewing the physical means of capital accumulation. The absence of organized capital and labour at the PI can be contrasted with their concern to agree a Belfast transport strategy. Transport planning had transcended the sectarian geography of the inner city to the extent that working-class communities, both Catholic and Protestant, suffered planning blight and dispersal. Their suburbanization demonstrates, however, the reconstitution of sectarian cum class divisions on a new terrain structured by monopoly capital and the British state. Our case studies appear to suggest that the material basis of class and sectarianism in Northern Ireland is being recreated under new economic and political conditions.

Nevertheless, the history of the transport issue demonstrates one possibility of a coalition of community groups around class issues in spite of the deep sectarian divisions in the working class. By their own admission, the



CGAC (1979, 33-4) had only a marginal affect on the Inquiry outcome, yet they did highlight the class bias of urban planning and the compliance of local politicians with the interests of capital in the past. The limitations of community politics are clearly demonstrated by the housing Inquiry-here the state was forced to reach an accommodation with a sectarian politics which conflated the issue with the legitimacy of Northern Ireland itself. In the process, a clear-cut articulation of working-class demands was impossible. In any case, such demands became a lower priority for planners than the maintenance of an overall political stability which rested ultimately on maintaining sectarian boundaries albeit in a slightly revised form.

Queen’s University, Belfart

Acknowledgements

The Committee for Social Science Research in Ireland funded the project on which the above research is based. An earlier version of this paper was read to the Annual Conference of the Sociological Association of Ireland, April ‘979.

VI Appendix Glossary of main participants and terms Alliance Party-Moderate cross-sectarian party active in local community issues. amc-Belfast and District Trades Union Council. Belfast Harbour Commission-elected on a restricted franchise of shipowners and between 25 000 and 30 000 property owners with companies or residence in Belfast. ca1-Confederation of British Industry (Northern Ireland Branch). ccAc-Community Groups Action Committee, based on the resources of CONI (Community Organisations of Northern Ireland) and the Belfast Law Centre (funded by the Department of Education and the Northern Ireland Office respectively). Formed 30 April 1977 after the DOE

announced the Transportation Inquiry. DuP-Democratic Unionist Party-Loyalist party led by Rev. Ian Paisley. DOE-Department of Environment. Dunmurry Golf Club-The club was threatened by road plans discussed at the Poleglass Inquiry. c w a c A 4 r e a t e r West Belfast Community Association, umbrella organization of Catholic and Protestant community groups established in 1973. Few remaining activists and little popular support. Icm-Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Northern Ireland Committee). Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry-comprises individual members and affiliated chambers of trade. NIHE-Northern Ireland Housing Executive. NILP-Northern Ireland Labour Party. PI-Poleglass Inquiry. Republican Clubs-Sinn Fein, the Workers’ Party. Sandy Row Development Association-representing one of the oldest Protestant inner-city communities, sought limited traffic diversion measures at the TI.

sDLP-Social Democratic and Labour Party, mainly Catholic party, arising from Civil Rights Movement.


Ti-Transport Inquiry. Twinbrook-a public housing estate adjacent to Poleglass. Originally a mixed estate, it has become totally Catholic in the wake of the movement of Catholics into west Belfast.

VII References

Castells, M. 1977: The urban question. London: Edward Arnold. Cockburn, C. 1977: The local state. London: Pluto Press. Community Groups Action Committee (CGAC) 1979: RoadF to destruction.

Darby, J. 1976: ConJict in Northern Ireland. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan. Darby, J. and Morris, G. 1974: Intimidation in housing. Belfast: Northern

Farrell, M. 1976: Northern Ireland: the Orange State. London: Pluto Press. Harvey, D. 1978: The urban process under capitalism. International Journal

Jones, E. 1960: A social geograpb o f Belfast. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Livery, M. 1978: Belfast Urban Area Plan, Review of Transportation Strateg,

Public Inquiry, Report o f Inspector. Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Massey, D. 1978: Regionalism: some current issues. Capital and Class 6,

10C125. Matthew, R. H. 1964: Belfast survey and plan 1962. Belfast: Her Majesty’s

Stationery Office. Poleglass Report 1978: Poleglass Area Public Inquiry, Reports Planning

Appeals Commission. Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Weiner, R. 1975: The rape andplunder of t h Shankill. Belfast: Notaems Press.

Belfast.

Ireland Community Relations Commission.

of Urban and Regional Research 2 , 101-131.

Le transport et le logement ont t t t des Pltments clts de la transformation de la zone risidentielle d e Belfast, d e son aspect qui remontait au dix-neuvitme sikcle en un aspect plus conforme P I’accumulation d u capital monopole au v i n g t i h e siecle. Comme dans d’autres pays capitalistes, le gouvernement d’Irlande du Nord s’est vu obligt d’intervenir dans la reproduction et le renouvellement des forces productrices, en gtntral, et de I’environnement urbain, en particulier. En constquence, il en a rtsultt, dans I’aprks-guerre, une crise tconomique et politique de grande envergure, qui provenait de I’histoire des classes, du sectarisme et de I’organisation du gouvernement dans cette zone. L’article suivant essaie de donner une premikre caracttrisation, nkcessairement limitte de la politisation du transport et du logement dans les conditions particulikres du Belfast d’aujourd’hui. Nous avons utilist deux enquCtes publiques pour prtciser notre analyse, P savoir, le rapport de 1’EnquCte sur la strattgie du s y s t h e de transport d e Belfast et I’Enqugte publique de la zone Poleglass portant sur le projet du gouvernement de construire un nouveau grand ensemble dans le quartier ouest de Belfast. Ces enquCtes se sont surtout penchtes sur deux aspects difftrents, quoique lits, de I’intervention de I’ttat en matikre d e reproduction sociale et ont donnt lieu i deux types divergents de protestations populaires. L a revendication au niveau des transports se fondait sur une organisation des groupes communautaires, attachte 2 une politique de la classe ouvrikre transcendant le sectarisme, tandis que la question du logement fit naitre une reaction de droite ou du moins une rtaction populiste sectaire destinte P empecher la construction du grand ensemble P I’ttude.


Transportwesen und Wohnungsbau waren Schliisselfaktoren beim Ubergang von Belfasts bebautem Bereich von einer Form des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts zu einer, die mehr der Monopolkapitalanhaufung des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts entspricht. Wie in anderen kapi- talistischen Landern sah sich auch in Nordiralnd der Staat gezwungen, in die Reproduktion und Erneuerung der Produktivkrafte im allgemeinen und der stadtischen Umwelt im besonderen einzugreifen. Das Resultat war eine wirtschaftliche und politische Krise betracht- licher Intensitat nach dem Krieg, die sich von der Tradition der sozialen Klassen, der Konfessionstrennung und der staatlichen Organisation in diesem Bereich herleitete. In folgender Arbeit sol1 versucht werden, eine vorllufige, begrenzte Charakterisierung der Politisierung von Transportwesen und Wohnungsbau unter den spezifischen Bedingungen des modernen Belfast zu liefern. Wir gehen bei unserer Analyse von zwei offentlichen Untersuchungen aus: der Untersuchung iiber die Revidierung der Transportwesen-Strategie von Belfast und der offentlichen Untersuchung iiber das Poleglass Gebiet beziiglich des vom Staat geplanten Baus einer neuen groRen Wohnsiedlung in West-Belfast. Im Zentrum dieser beiden Untersuchungen standen zwei verschiedene, jedoch miteinander verbundene Aspekte staatlichen Engagements im Bereich der sozialen Erneuerung, und das Ergebnis waren zwei unterschiedliche Formen offentlichen Protests. Der Transportwesen-Protest basierte auf einer Gemeindegruppen-Organisation, die sich fur interkonfessionelle Arbeiterklassen-Politik einsetzte, wahrend das Wohnungsbautherna eine rechtsgerichtete oder zumindest populistische, sektiererische Reaktion zur Folge hatte, die den Bau der geplanten Wohnsiedlung verhindern sollte.

El transporte y la vivienda han sido elementos clave en la transforrnacidn del medio ambiente de Belfast, construido a partir de la forma que presentaba en el siglo XIX para formar uno mLs congruente con la acumulacidn monop6lica de capital en el siglo XX. A1 igual que otros estados capitalistas, el estado de Irlanda del Norte se ha visto en la obligacidn de intervenir en la reproduccidn y renovacidn de las fuerzas productivas en general y del medio urbano en particular. El resultado ha sido una crisis econdmicepolitica de postguerra, de considerable intensidad, resultante de la historia de clases, el sectarismo y la organizaci6n del estado en la zona. El estudio que sigue trata de esbozar una caracterizacidn preliminar y limitada de la politizaci6n del transporte y la vivienda en las condiciones especificas del Belfast contem- porLneo. Hemos utilizados dos Estudios de Comisiones Publicas como foco de nuestro anilisis, la Reseiia del Estudio Public0 sobre la Estrategia del Transporte en Belfast y el Estudio Public0 de la Zona Poleglass vinculada a la propuesta del estado de construir una gran urbanizacidn residencial en el oeste de Belfast. Estos Estudios Publicos se refieren a dos aspectos distintos pero vinculados de la participacidn estatal en la reproduccidn social y provocaron dos tipos distintos de protesta popular. La protesta sobre el transporte se bas6 en una organizaci6n de grupos comunitarios comprometidos con actitudes politicas de clase obrera multisectarias, mientras que el problema de la vivienda provoc6 una reacci6n de derecha o por lo menos sectana populista destinada a impedir la construcci6n de la urbanizaci6n de viviendas que se estudiaba.

Documents

Urban politics in Belfast: two case studies