The Baltimore Inner Harbor development is being repeated around the world wherever ports have moved downriver from their origins and left abandoned waterfront that, like a properly irrigated desert, might bloom. Bloom with promenades and shops and cafes and the parade of humanity. And so Inner Harbors are being attempted from London to Sydney.

The agreement of the Enterprise Development Co., creation of James Rouse of Harborplace, Cross Keys and Columbia fame, to take on a 14-acre development site in Belfast should spread hope across Northern Ireland, where endless sectarian strife and terrorism have so often killed hope.

The project, called Laganbank, would represent major international investment in Northern Ireland, in the skills of its Protestants and Catholics and in their ability to live together and craft a political future that reflects their British and Irish traditions in harmony. Good luck to it.