Belfast’s peace lines and potential directions for local planning

The ambiguities and contradictions embodied in Belfast's peace lines provide the central empirical focus for this chapter. The acceleration of segregation after the outbreak of civil disorder in 1969 was characterised by a desperate spatial sorting process that left jagged and uncomfortable edges to ethnic territory. The use of walls to manage the worst of these is one of the most enduring social and physical images of violence in Northern Ireland. In his attempt to classify urban walls, Marcuse drew a distinction between functions of oppression, isolation and control and those of protection, insulation and community reinforcement. This chapter locates Belfast's peace lines in the latter context.