Population, employment and urbanisation trends in Northern Ireland

Abstract

In recent decades, Northern Ireland has experienced many of the problems of social, physical and economic development on a daunting scale. For the present, unfortunately, to these have been added the problems of civil unrest. As in other -areas of Western Europe, the search has been for methods to alleviate the problems, and Northern Ireland, through the local administration, has been evolving policies to co-ordinate the various aspects of regional policy. Of major concern has been the evolution of economic policy and, of course, this has not been in isolation from the issues of social and physical planning. In this paper, the point of departure is an examination of the process of change which is likely to be necessary in seeking economic expansion. From this base, some comments can be made of how far the experience in recent years is consistent with this process.