Human Rights and the Architecture of Conflict

Human Rights and the Architecture of Conflict exposes how governments on both sides of the Atlantic entrenched racial and ethnic divisions through manipulation of the planning and design of the built environment.

Based on interviews, never-before-seen documents, and field work carried out in Belfast, Miami, Washington DC, and New York City, this book shows how the planning and design of our streets and communities impacts the physical, mental, social, economic, political and environmental well-being of communities. Tim Cunningham, an urban scholar and human rights advocate, reveals how the British Army set about reconfiguring the urban fabric of Belfast as part of a counter-insurgency strategy in the 1970s that was to have profound consequences. By integrating colonial design principles into urban planning and architecture processes, racial and sectarian boundaries were enshrined in concrete. The outcome was that patterns of inequality and spatial deprivation were compounded as highway routing, street design, and the location of housing developments were used to further segregationist objectives. A global genealogy of segregation, the text highlights the real-life walls that cleave communities along ethnic and political lines—and urban designers and developers’ role in erecting them.

This book is ideal reading for courses in urban studies, community development, geography, conflict, architecture, human rights, Irish Studies, and city planning.