HomeBelfast: State of the City Development Debates
Background
We set up the Belfast: State of the City initiative in 2004. Its aim is to help organisations to work together on the development and regeneration issues that face the city.Senior representatives of most of Belfast's development organisations have been involved since the outset and have pledged their support for the initiative.
State of the City has been shaped by the expertise of those involved to-date, including leading local and international academics and practitioners in the fields of physical, economic, social and cultural development.
It has helped us to build up a picture of the challenges and opportunities facing Belfast. It has also contributed much to our understanding of how Belfast works, plus the debate on how the city should continue to be developed.
Current series of debates
We are hosting a series of regular 'Development Debate' breakfast seminars, each directly contributing to the development of our Integrated Economic Strategy, City Investment Framework and the Belfast Masterplan.Next debate - 24 January 2012
Our next breakfast seminar - Marketing Manchester: How we are growing tourism and investment - takes place on 24 January at Belfast City Hall.The speaker is Andrew Stokes, Chief Executive of Marketing Manchester. This agency is responsible for the national and international promotion of the Manchester city-region. Andrew is regularly involved in bidding for and planning high profile conferences and events in the areas of politics, sport and business.
Andrew also leads Marketing Manchester's engagement with other Manchester stakeholders on initiatives and campaigns designed to promote business in the city centre and to attract visitors to the city. He also led the project to create Manchester's new award-winning visitor information centre in 2010.
State of the City 2004 - 2008
The initiative began in 2004 and included an annual conference, a seminar series, a comprehensive research programme, with the publication of a series of influential papers. Since the last State of the City conference in 2008, we reviewed the initiative, asked our stakeholders what they would improve, and built a new State of the City programme which will be more effective and offer more opportunities to work together on building a competitive, connected,confident and cohesive city.Contact us
Policy and Business Development UnitDevelopment Department
Belfast City Council
Cecil Ward Buidling
4-10 Linenhall Street
Belfast
BT2 8BP
Tel: 028 9091 8764
Email: sotc@belfastcity.gov.uk
