Merry Christmas and/or happy whatever you happen to celebrate around this time of year.
Hopefully things have slowed down for you all and you’re relaxing with family and friends either at home or somewhere on vacation. I’ll be doing that here in Toronto and making pancakes for breakfast, because that’s what I like to do on Christmas morning.
If you’re in the market for some long form reading material while you relax, I recommend you check out an article in The Walrus called, After the Troubles. It’s by Toronto-based planner Joe Berridge – who is a partner at Urban Strategies – and it’s the story behind his team’s Belfast City Centre Regeneration Strategy and Investment Plan.
It’s a fascinating and entertaining read, and there are lots of comparisons between Toronto and Belfast. Here’s a little taste:
“IT WOULD BE HARD to conceive of two cities more different than Belfast and Toronto. One old world, one new; one grand, one utilitarian; one barely ticking over, one growing like topsy. And of course, one tribal, the other the epitome of post-tribe. Belfast is 96 percent white—forget about Catholic-Protestant, that’s the critical urban statistic. And yet it’s important to remember that Toronto itself was once the largest Orange town in the world. (Wikipedia asserts that every mayor of Toronto since its founding was an Orangeman until Nathan Philips, a wonderful Jewish mayor, was elected in 1954.) Even the current mayor, John Tory, draws his name from a bunch of brigands and royalist cattle thieves in the Irish backcountry.”
I spent a bit of time in Belfast when I was working in Dublin (2007) and so it was particularly interesting for me to read about his assessment of the city. Like Berridge, I found the city eerily empty during off-peak times. But it’s an architecturally rich city and a fascinating city for urbanists because of all that has happened.
Though now we are talking about “after the troubles.” Things are progressing. And that strikes me as a positive thought while I make my pancakes on Christmas morning.
There has been and continues to be many divided cities around the world.
Berlin had the Berlin Wall.
Northern Ireland (mostly Belfast) has its Peace Walls that still separate Protestant loyalists and Catholic republicans from each other.
Beirut had the Green Line, which separated the predominately Muslim side in the west from the predominantly Christian side in the east during the Lebanese Civil War. And I understand this is still the case today.
Detroit has 8 Mile Road, which is a psychological barrier rather than a physical one, but one that still sharply separates whites (blue dots, below) and blacks (green dots, below). The image below is from Wired Magazine.
And even here in Toronto you could say that we’ve become a divided city, albeit without the civil wars or race riots that have plagued the other cities listed above. Our voting patterns suggest a real urban-suburban divide and the many ethnic groups in this city continue to concentrate themselves in specific areas.
I’ve been thinking about this phenomenon in the context of a recent article I read talking about closed vs. open social networks. The article was talking about career success, but I think the lessons are also transferrable to cities.
The argument made in the article is that people who are able to position themselves in open networks – that is, become the connector between diverse kinds of social groups – are more likely to succeed than people who position themselves in closed networks where they are only surrounded by people they already know and by people who are similar to themselves.
And the reason for this is because people in open networks end up getting exposed to a broader set of viewpoints and ideas. They get a more accurate view of the world and they are able to problem solve better than those who may be coming at it from a more myopic or singular perspective.
But the challenge with open networks, is that there seems to be an innate human tendency towards closed networks. We love what is familiar. We love what is comfortable to us. In other words, we are attracted to people that are similar to ourselves. This is known as homophily.
So it’s not surprising that we tend to cluster ourselves in cities. Yes, there are economic benefits to doing so (known as agglomeration economies), but there’s also a certain feeling of solidarity that comes from being around other people with the same view of the world. There’s no tension because everyone has the same beliefs, whether that be religion or politics or sports or what to eat.
But just like there’s an argument to be made that successful people should try and resist the pull towards closed networks, I think there’s also an argument to be made that successful cities should try and resist the pull towards closed and divided cities.
That’s why some people believe that tolerance is a critical ingredient to fostering creativity in cities.
A few years ago, I told a friend of mine–who is originally from Ireland–that I visited Belfast while I was living in Dublin. I lived there in 2007. His response was: “Wow. You’re brave. I would never go there.”
This struck me is a bit odd.
I mean, I was well aware of the Troubles, but it hadn’t dawned on me, perhaps out of naivety, that it would still be an unsafe place to visit. But I, of course, hadn’t grown up in Ireland. My friend proceeded to tell me stories about childhood Catholic friends who had gotten caught in the wrong side of town in Northern Ireland.
Then tonight, on my way home from work on the subway, I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s David and Goliath and his chapter on the turmoil in Northern Ireland, and it got me thinking: Did I totally underestimate the ethno-nationalism still present in Belfast?
What I subsequently discovered is that the city, particularly outside of the city center, still remains profoundly divided by religion. In fact, this is so much the case that there are a number of well known “interface areas” sprinkled across the urban landscape. These are real physical barriers that separate Catholics from Protestants, and vice versa. The goal being to minimize “inter-communal violence”, hence their second name as peace lines.
Being that city geek that I am, I of course had to see what these things looked like. It’s an unusual kind of urban condition. Well here’s what one looks like at Springfield Road and Workman Avenue in Belfast. The image is taken (from Google Streetview) looking south on Workman Avenue, from what I think is the predominately Protestant side.
If you look closely on the left hand side, you’ll notice that there’s an open door. Which has me wondering about how these interface areas actually function in everyday life. Is it common for people to pass through these gates? Is it a go at your own risk type of thing? Or are they hard and fast no go zones?
Also interesting to note is how these peace lines continue beyond just road intersections. Here you have an image of someone’s house that backs onto the same peace line as above.
Can you imagine sitting in your backyard with a looming fence above you?
Ultimately this research has made me feel incredibly naive about a city I have visited. I should have been in tune to this. If anyone else has any additional insights, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.