Background
to the
Research
- A major part of the recent conflict in
Northern Ireland has taken place on the streets of Belfast.
- A spatial outcome of this struggle is
the residential segregation of Protestants and Catholics that exists
in much of the city today.
- This paper provides an historical analysis,
using census data from 1871 to 1991, and a spatial perspective on the
variation in segregation levels in Belfast.
Research
Approach
- The authors draw on census data from 1871
to 1991 in order to measure the extent of religious segregation within
Belfast and to provide a spatial perspective on the variation in segregation
levels within the contemporary urban area. The authors analysed the
data using the dissimilarity index D which measures the unevenness of
segregation, where D has a value of zero this means a perfectly even
distribution of population, and 100 indicates a very uneven distribution.
Main Findings
1871-1891
- During this period the city population
increased by 46.7%, growth was greater for Protestants than Catholics,
the D values were low but rising from 13.2 to 21.6.
1901-1971
- The population of the County Borough rose
from 349,180 in 1901 to 443,671 in 1951, falling to 362,082 in 1971.
The D values show a constant level from 1901 to 1911, increasing steeply
by 10 percentage points between 1911 and 1926 (due to the Troubles of
1920-23 which related to the partition of Ireland). Between 1926 and
1951, D values levelled and declined from 1951 to 1971.
1971-1991
- Both the 1971 and 1981 censuses were the
subjects of politically motivated campaigns to encourage non-response.
During the period 1971-1991, the Urban Area population fell by 17.2%,
due to decentralisation of housing and population; the intense urban
violence of the 1970s was accompanied by a steep decline in population
numbers.
- In 1971 the D value based on 15 wards
is 44.9 and between 1971 and 1981 it is estimated that in the Greater
Belfast area between 8,000 and 15,000 families were forced to move home
(between 6.6 and 11.8 per cent of the urban population). The current
D value is 60.2 for the Urban Area as a whole.
Segregation variation within the City
- Of the ten subdivisions of the Urban Area
of Belfast, only Belfast West has a Catholic majority and the other
subdivisions vary in the size of their Protestant majorities. The majority
is very high in Belfast East and the neighbouring area of Castlereagh.
- The unweighted average D value for the
Belfast LGD subdivisions is 43.7 - which is almost ten percentage points
lower than the corresponding suburban average of 53.3.
Conclusions
- The evidence suggests that Belfast has
been segregated since its beginnings, and once segregated areas develop
they tend to remain and intensify.
- Segregation in Belfast is a direct spatial
outcome of violence, with upsurges in violence being followed by increased
segregation. In periods of peace, segregation falls back but not to
its previous level.
- The highest levels of segregation are
found in public sector housing, and the Urban Area new-build developments
in the 1980s were almost entirely segregated.
- Contemporary Belfast has the highest
segregation levels since the city was founded, and the history of the
last century showed that it took 25 to 30 years before a decline in
segregation levels was detectable.
|