ABSTRACT
Much of the interest in promoting sustainable development in planning for the city-region focuses on the apparently inexorable rise in the demand for car travel, and the contribution that certain urban forms and land-use relationships can make to reducing energy consumption and emissions harmful to both local environmental and global ecological conditions. As Banister (1999) records, although some of the growth in car dependency can be attributed to the acquisition of cars by individuals, it also reflects the distribution of functional opportunities which have become more dispersed throughout the city-region. Within this context, policy prescription has increasingly favoured a compact city approach with increasing urban residential densities and mixed-use development to address the physical separation of daily activities and the resultant dependency on the private car. This chapter aims to outline and evaluate recent such efforts to integrate land-use and transport policy in the Belfast Metropolitan Area in Northern Ireland, wherein significant policy initiatives have recently been undertaken at both regional and metropolitan scales.
