Scott Bollens

A peace-keeping wall in Belfast. Image courtesy of Scott Bollens.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog-only article about an urban planner and his lecture on divided cities. That planner was Scott Bollens, who spoke at the UO for the Savage Lecture series called "Cities in War, Struggle, and Peace: The Architecture of Memory and Life — Rebuilding Cities after War and Disaster" (long, true! But accurate ... and by the way, podcasts of the first year of lectures, which concentrated on creating memorials, are available for download here.)

Bollens had one of the more interesting topics (though frankly, I was fascinated with the entire series — and really, you probably could tell that from the fact that I wrote 6 articles on the series even though, frustratingly, most of them only appeared online): Sarajevo, Belfast, Jerusalem, Nicosia — the cities totally divided by ethnic or religious strife, hatred and destruction. I finally had a minute to email Scott Bollens my questions a few weeks ago, and he kindly took time from his (obviously busy) schedule to send thoughtful answers and photographs as well.

Here's Bollens' description of himself (a short bio, if you will):

Scott A. Bollens has interviewed over 220 urban professionals and community advocates in Jerusalem, Belfast, Johannesburg, Nicosia (Cyprus), Sarajevo and Mostar (Bosnia), and Barcelona and Basque cities (Spain) about the role of urban policy and city building amidst nationalistic ethnic conflict and political transitions. Recent books include Cities, Nationalism, and Democratization (2007, Routledge), On Narrow Ground (2000, State University of New York Press) and Urban Peace-Building in Divided Societies (1999, Westview Press). Prof. Bollens has written more than 35 journal articles and book chapters in leading venues over the past 20 years and has presented his international research on politically divided and contested cities at numerous public forums in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Want to read the rest? Trust me: Bollens has a strong sense of humor and outrage, a finely honed moral sense but an ability to look at his own actions that fully emerges even when he's talking about ethnic strife and planning for post-strife city rebuilding. Some of his answers come from his previous writings (that he put in the email to answer the questions), but they're still thought-provoking.

Go here to read the full interview.