Involving church funders with social activists provides the setting in which real lasting impact can take place. Urban Decline Urban decline has left the community disenfranchised, no longer involved in the sites where employment was previously focused. In Northern Ireland, community tension along political and religious lines means often-differing aspirations for future development site use exist. It is vital that each section of the community has a valued contribution to make in determining the future, although also essential that no one section control issues. To this end it is important to ensure that the decision is not affected by political cycles as politicians are, unsurprisingly, influenced by the date of the next election and hence prone to short-term thinking.
Strategic planning is key to delivery, planning which listens to all and then sets a firm course.
The new umbrella department, DSD, brings together, through agencies and core civil service structures, all of the elements necessary to make sustainable urban renewal happen. The solutions to the community tensions that existed in Northern Ireland tended in the past to recommend separate living. So called Peace Walls kept loyalist and republican, nationalist and unionist apart. This thinking was in many ways a continuation of the industrialised thinking that separated living and working sectors of the urban landscape. To deal with housing needs a new housing estate would be created without thought as to how this would relate to working and shopping needs.