Shared space in post-conflict Belfast

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.