1994 IRA ceasefire - a decade on: Belfast has stolen a march on Dublin with landmark developments born out of the absence of bombs on its streets, writes Environment Editor Frank McDonald.
It was grim. Twenty years ago, there was only one restaurant that I can remember along the entire length of Great Victoria Street and it was a little Italian trattoria called Ciro's. But that was before it became Belfast's "Golden Mile", crowned by Roscoff's (now Cayenne) in Shaftesbury Square.
The main shopping area on both sides of Royal Avenue was a security zone surrounded by gates, where shoppers were all frisked on their way through by what a Belfast friend used to call "civilian feelies". The area was dead after dark; even the pubs within the cordon sanitaire closed at 7 p. m. And when the Westlink was driven through the fringes of the city centre, people pointed to its depressed level and said the secondary purpose was to provide a moat to protect the city centre against the Falls and the Shankill; if serious unrest broke out, it could be flooded by the military authorities.
That doesn't seem like a real danger now. Times have changed and Belfast is a more vibrant city, in which property developers have the confidence to invest. Construction is an act of faith in the future and, given what's been happening over the past 10 years, Belfast's future looks quite secure.
There's been so much acclaim for the Waterfront Hall and its role in ushering in a whole new era of urban regeneration and civilising the city. Unquestionably, it's the icon of "New Belfast", the pivot of a new quarter on the banks of the Lagan, and one of the most tangible products of the peace dividend.
But the truth is that the revival of Belfast really began with the restoration of the Grand Opera House on Great Victoria Street in 1984, 10 years before the first IRA ceasefire. This was a remarkable act of bravado by the British government at a time when there were still bombs being detonated down the street.
And when the side elevation of the restored Opera House took a hit from an IRA bomb on Glengall Street, it was quickly repaired.
The same was true of that dazzling Victorian gin palace, the Crown Bar, which is owned by the National Trust; there was no question of not replacing its hand-painted windows.
The Castle Court shopping centre on Royal Avenue also pre-dates the ceasefire by six years; it upper floors of offices were all but armour-plated. The generosity of its central space contrasts with the greedy clutter of the St Stephen's Green shopping centre in Dublin, which also started trading in 1988.
Belfast has stolen a march on Dublin in other ways, too. While successive governments south of the Border dithered over the procurement of a national conference centre, Belfast City Council got on with building the Waterfront Hall and the Odyssey complex, which includes a 10,000-seat arena.
The £90 million complex, with a low dome floating like a halo over the arena, also includes the W5 science discovery centre, something we also dithered about for years. Lit up at night, the halo effect is quite remarkable - especially with the Lagan Weir in the foreground, bathed in blue neon light.
Odyssey would be an even more impressive landmark if it wasn't visually cut off from the city centre by the M3 cross-harbour expressway. But, unlike the Point in Dublin, it is within walking distance. It is also seen as the catalyst to regenerate a swathe of redundant shipyards on the east bank of the Lagan.
There are ambitious plans for this Titanic Quarter as the latest element of Laganside's £720 million development programme. And even though the huge Harland and Wolff gantries are as redundant as the shipyards, they will be retained as an emblem of Belfast's industrial might at the turn of the 20th century.
Other big projects on the stocks include the Cathedral Quarter, a run-down area around St Ann's Cathedral, which is taking much longer than expected to get off the ground. The Lyric Theatre might have led it, but its board could not imagine relocating from its comfortable fastness in Stranmillis.
There is also a £250 million regeneration plan for Victoria Square, in the central retail zone east of Royal Avenue, which is billed as one of the largest projects of its kind in Europe, with a combination of covered shopping streets, leisure facilities and apartments linking the city centre with the Laganside area.
Southern money has flowed in, led by Dunloe Ewart plc (though, of course, part of it started out as a Belfast property company) with a flagship office development at Lanyon Place, beside the Waterfront Hall. It is overlooked by the non-identical twin towers of the Hilton Hotel and BT's regional headquarters.
The Cosgrave brothers also dipped their toes in the water with an apartments scheme in Laganside, where a curiously neo-gothic "house style" has been adopted. And though there has been a boom of sorts in inner city residential development, Belfast (like Dublin) remains an overwhelmingly suburban city.
Two significant new buildings in the Laganside area are both directly related to the legal profession - the Laganside Courts complex, officially opened in February 2003, and the new Bar Library nearby, have both won the Liam MacCormick Building of the Year award from the Royal Society of Ulster Architects.
Belfast architects Robinson McIlwaine, designers of the Waterfront Hall, were also responsible for the Bar Library, which the jury described as "a truly civic building . . . a great achievement [which would] play a key role in re-establishing the urbane quality of a fractured city centre".
What Belfast now needs to turn its attention to, according to architect Ciaran Mackel, is the neglected areas on either side of the "peace line" that extend for 1,690 metres between the Falls and the Shankill, and imagine how a collaborative approach "might help configure a new time and a new place for Belfast".
Derry has no "interface walls"; the Foyle largely defines what side you're on and the walls are 17th century. It also retains a remarkable urban coherence and has become the North's fastest growing urban area. With a population of 102,500, it is Ireland's fourth largest city, easily ahead of Limerick and Galway.
Nonetheless, Derry has to fight for recognition in the context of its relatively peripheral location.
Its role as a growth centre is recognised in Shaping Our Future, the regional development strategy for Northern Ireland, and also by the Republic's National Spatial Strategy. It could hardly have been ignored.
Derry also has plans for urban regeneration, particularly along the Foyle. The central objective is to develop it as a "hub city" for the north west. Recent cultural additions include the Millennium complex, with its 1,000-seat civic theatre, as well as two smaller venues, the Playhouse and the Verbal Arts Centre.
But like Belfast, it has suffered huge losses. The most recent involved the demolition of one of the most impressive of Derry's old shirt factories - Tillie and Henderson's, beside Craigavon Bridge. It will be instructive to see how much of Ebrington barracks survives its current development plans.
That, too, is part of the peace dividend.
Tomorrow: Dan Keenan examines the lingering bitterness and growing racism post-1994; Arthur Beesley highlights the circumstances of a recent punishment beating.