Belfast City Story CASEreport 102: May 2016 Laura Lane, Ben Grubb and Anne Power Contents List of Boxes ......................................................................................................................................... 3 List of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... 3 About LSE Housing and Communities .................................................................................................. 5 Foreword and acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... 5 1. About Belfast ....................................................................................................................................... 6 2. History ................................................................................................................................................. 7 Belfast’s Industrial Decline ................................................................................................................... 8 Population Decline and Suburbanisation ............................................................................................. 9 The Troubles.......................................................................................................................................11 The Housing Divide ............................................................................................................................12 Peace and Recovery ...........................................................................................................................13 Northern Ireland Peace Fund .............................................................................................................15 Rebalancing the Economy ..................................................................................................................16 Population re-growth and immigration .............................................................................................16 3. Financial crash ................................................................................................................................... 20 4. Reshaping the Economy .................................................................................................................... 23 SME Sector .........................................................................................................................................25 Finance ...............................................................................................................................................27 Services ..............................................................................................................................................28 Collaboration ......................................................................................................................................28 Training ..............................................................................................................................................28 Marketing ...........................................................................................................................................28 City Centre Regeneration ...................................................................................................................28 Upgrading ...........................................................................................................................................30 The Core: improving retail provision..................................................................................................30 Lagan Corridor: the Belfast riverside .................................................................................................32 Culture and tourism ...........................................................................................................................33 Titanic Quarter ...................................................................................................................................36 Northern Ireland Science Park ...........................................................................................................37 5. Energy and the Next Industrial Revolution ....................................................................................... 39 Energy challenges and the role of renewables ..................................................................................39 Wind energy .......................................................................................................................................40 Tidal energy ........................................................................................................................................40 Proposed projects to boost Belfast’s Green Industry ........................................................................41 6. Reorganisation of housing provision, local governance and devolution of powers ......................... 43 Changes to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) .............................................................43 Local government reform ..................................................................................................................43 Devolution from Westminster to Northern Ireland ...........................................................................45 7. Social inclusion .................................................................................................................................. 46 Economic deprivation and inequality ................................................................................................46 Education ...........................................................................................................................................48 Welfare reform ..................................................................................................................................51 Demographic trends and implications for social inclusion ................................................................52 2 Sectarian and racial tensions .............................................................................................................53 8. Neighbourhood and community projects ......................................................................................... 55 9. Concluding thoughts ......................................................................................................................... 58 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 61 List of Boxes Box 1: Giro d’Italia 2014 ........................................................................................................................ 35 Box 2: Why capturing methane from landfill matters .......................................................................... 41 Box 3: East Belfast Network Centre – Templemore Avenue ................................................................ 56 List of Figures Figure 1: Map of Ireland and Northern Ireland ...................................................................................... 6 Figure 2: Timeline of important events in Belfast's History .................................................................... 7 Figure 3: Percentage of workforce in manufacturing employment, Belfast (1951 – 1991) ................... 8 Figure 4: Population decline, Belfast (1951-1990) .................................................................................. 9 Figure 5: Trends in Annual Total Net Out-migration in Northern Ireland (1973 – 1990) ..................... 10 Figure 6: Belfast's suburbanisation: City and Metropolitan Area population (1951 - 2011) ................ 11 Figure 7: Belfast population by religious affiliation (1861 – 2011) ....................................................... 13 Figure 8: Population Change - Belfast (1981-2013) .............................................................................. 17 Figure 9: Northern Ireland migration trends (1991 – 2010) ................................................................. 18 Figure 10: Northern Ireland Worker Registration Scheme Applicants by Age (May 2004 to March 2011). .................................................................................................................................................... 19 Figure 11: GVA and GDP Growth (%) in Northern Ireland, UK and Republic of Ireland (2008 – 2011) 20 Figure 12: Claimant count rate ............................................................................................................. 21 Figure 13: Youth claimant count rate in Northern Ireland (aged 18 to 24) .......................................... 21 Figure 14: Redundancies in Belfast as a % of Northern Ireland total ................................................... 22 Figure 15: FDI businesses by Belfast regions ........................................................................................ 23 Figure 16: Assisted investment by parliamentary area (£m)rea (£m) .................................................. 24 Figure 17: Registered businesses by employment size band, March 2014 .......................................... 25 Figure 18: Belfast number of businesses by employment size band (2014) ........................................ 26 Figure