It is a commonly held view that the city of Belfast is emerging out of conflict and into a new era of tolerance and transformation. This book challenges this viewpoint. The authors pinpoint how international peace accords, such as the Belfast Agreement, are gradually eroded as conflict shifts into a stale and repetitive pattern of ethnically-divided competition over resources.

The book offers a vivid portrait of the human drama and brutality of the conflict in Belfast. The authors argue that the control of place remains the most important weapon in the politicization of communities and the reproduction of political violence. Segregation provides the laboratory within which sectarianism continues to grow. Examining the implications of these social divisions, the authors draw upon a wide international literature and provide insights that will be useful to students of geography, planning, politics, sociology and peace studies.

Peter Shirlow is Senior Lecturer in the School of Environmental Studies at the University of Ulster. He has written widely on the political economy of Ireland. Brendan Murtagh is lecturer in Environmental Planning at Queens University, Belfast. His previous book,The Politics of Territory , was published in 2002 by Palgrave.