ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the implications of equality legislation for spatial planning and shows how it connects the profession to the territorial legacies of segregation, interfacing and poverty. It reflects on surveys with planners and case studies to show that a lack of skills, the sheer complexity of problems, an absence of guidance on the interpretation of what at times appear to be contradictory policy aims, are all part of the problem. The development of equality legislation was bound up with the constitutional crisis in the Northern Ireland state, the need to manage discrimination and control violence and to act as a necessary guarantee to build confidence and peace between the two communities. The key aim of the Act was to mainstream and embed equality practice in routine policy formulation, implementation and review processes. The chapter reclaims the ethics of social justice and progressive redistribution, the profession might help make sense of the rights embodied in the Northern Ireland Act 1998.
