Brussels, a truncated metropolis

Kesteloot, Christian; Saey, Pieter

doi:10.1023/b:gejo.0000006564.82884.c8

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 9 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…However, these expansions are oriented toward suburban or peri-urban development rather than to the core city (idem; Ryckewaert, 2011). The key exception is Brussels, which from the 1960s onwards starts to rapidly deindustrialize, and loses population due to suburbanization (Kesteloot and Saey, 2002). Simultaneously, Brussels is actively promoted as a tertiary growth pole (Ryckewaert, 2011) and becomes the headquarters of several European Institutions.…”

Section: The Walloon Axis: Belgian Urban System Development In the Second Kondratieff Wave (1840-1895)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Simultaneously, Brussels is actively promoted as a tertiary growth pole (Ryckewaert, 2011) and becomes the headquarters of several European Institutions. While these developments induce strong central business district (CBD) formation, most CBD employees nevertheless commute inwards (Boussauw et al, 2012), contributing to population peaking in 1967 (Kesteloot and Saey, 2002). These are all signs that two other features of the late-industrial agglomeration-economy apply: decentralization of production and centralization of control (Scott, 1982, Phelps andOzawa, 2003).…”

Section: The Walloon Axis: Belgian Urban System Development In the Second Kondratieff Wave (1840-1895)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This strong emphasis on new regionalism, together with the administratively constrained size of the BCR, has long obscured Brussels' economic renaissance, which becomes increasingly apparent from the 1990s onwards (Kesteloot and Saey, 2002). After 25 years of absolute population decline, the BCR's net population starts growing again after 1996 (idem).…”

Section: The Walloon Axis: Belgian Urban System Development In the Second Kondratieff Wave (1840-1895)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With increasing regional autonomy, the economic narratives of the three regions have diverged. While Wallonia is represented as a region that is slowly recovering from harsh deindustrialization in the 1970s and 1980s (Van Criekingen et al, 2007), Flanders is described in the terms of a 'post-Fordist' narrative of urban networks (idem), and the BCR represents a truncated world city squeezed by institutional barriers (idem; Kesteloot and Saey, 2002). However, to what extent does metropolization integrate older socio-spatial structures?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Flemish Diamond or ABC-Axis? The spatial structure of the Belgian metropolitan area

Meeteren

Boussauw

Derudder

et al. 2016

European Planning Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This contribution traces the evolution of the Belgian urban system by adopting an historical taxonomy of agglomeration-economy regimes, and poses the question whether a new centralizing agglomeration-economy regime based on renewed 'metropolization' can be observed. Belgium has federalized into three regions during the last decades, and different spatial perspectives emerged about how the central metropolitan area crosscuts the regional borders. After placing Belgian metropolization in its historical context, we engage with its contemporary geography. We inquire if the metropolitan core of Belgium is more akin to the 'Flemish Diamond', with capital city Brussels as the southernmost node, or whether a spatial pattern reminiscent of the historical 'Antwerp-Brussels-Charleroi (ABC)-Axis' is a more adequate description. To answer these questions, we examine the spatial integration of the Belgian labor market utilizing Vasanen's (2012) connectivity field method and a 2010 nation-wide travel-to-work dataset. The results indicate that contemporary metropolization in Belgium can be topographically expressed as an area that is more trans-regional than the Flemish Diamond yet more polycentric than an extension of Brussels, thus pointing to renewed economic centralization tendencies at the supra-regional level.1 Although part of a broader theoretical claim that remains unexamined in this chapter, Scott's (2012) claims about the emergence of a new 'cognitive-cultural economy' discusses the same agglomerative mechanisms as Krätke's (2007) 'metropolization'. 2 The term 'nebular city' ('nevelstad' in Dutch) was adopted from the Italian concept of città

show abstract

Section: The Walloon Axis: Belgian Urban System Development In the Second Kondratieff Wave (1840-1895)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Walloon Axis: Belgian Urban System Development In the Second Kondratieff Wave (1840-1895)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Walloon Axis: Belgian Urban System Development In the Second Kondratieff Wave (1840-1895)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations