GeoJournal 58: 53–63, 2002.

© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

53

Brussels, a truncated metropolis

Christian Kesteloot1,∗ & Pieter Saey2

1 Institute
of Social and Economic Geography, Catholic University of Leuven, B-3001 Leuven, Belgium; 2 Department
of Geography, Ghent University, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; ∗ Author for correspondence (Tel: 32 016 322432;
Fax: 32 016 322980; E-mail: chris.kesteloot@geo.kuleuven.ac.be)

Received and accepted

Key words: Brussels Capital Region, Brussels metropolitan area, divided city, reform of the Belgian state

Abstract
This paper describes and analyses the geographical development and the governmental, budget and administrative structure
of Brussels. It defines the place Brussels occupies among the cities of Europe and assesses the value of its Regional
Development Plan. Brussels appears to be highly successful in international inter-city competition, but it also appears
to be unable to develop a strategy for dealing with the problems of the divided city it has become in the late-20th century.
Key factors in explaining this paradox are a discrepancy between the political delimitation of the Brussels Capital Region
(a member state of the federal state of Belgium) and the geographical urban region, and the administrative fragmentation
of the Brussels Capital Region. These factors are strongly related to the reform of the Belgian state and the forces behind
this reform. In the absence of a strategy based on solidarity within the metropolitan community, one has to fear for the
development towards a repressive city.

Introduction gionalization), and fourth, a discussion of the success of

Geographically speaking, the metropolitan area of Brussels
coincides with the Brussels urban region (1,614 km2), com-
posed of the physical agglomeration (a continuous built-up
area) and a series of suburbs and functionally urbanized
municipalities that show strong relations with the central
city and the agglomeration through commuting, journeys to
school, shopping and migration. Politically speaking, the
metropolitan area of Brussels is restricted to the Brussels
Capital Region (BCR), one of the three regions of the fed-
eral state of Belgium, consisting of Brussels and 18 other
municipalities. This federal entity (161 km2) is considerably
smaller than the urban region or even the agglomeration. The
purpose of this paper is to analyse a paradox that charac-
terizes Brussels: on the one hand it is a highly successful
metropolis in terms of international inter-city competition
but on the other it appears not to be able to deal adequately
with the problems of the divided city it has become. Key
factors in this paradox are the discrepancy between the polit-
ical delimitation of the BCR and the geographical extension
of the metropolitan area as well as the administrative frag-
mentation of the BCR. These factors are strongly related to
the reform of the Belgian state and the forces behind this
reform. The part-informative, part-analytical sections that
follow present first a socio-geographical and economic pro-
file of Brussels and its development towards a divided city
(i.e., the geographical development of Brussels), second, a
description of the governmental structure of Belgium and
Brussels, third, an examination of the budget structure and
administrative structure of the BCR (metropolization by re-
Brussels in inter-city competition and an assessment of the
‘urban project’ as elaborated in the Regional Development
Plan (a truncated metropolis in expansion without strategy).
In the concluding section a synthesis is made, pointing out
the main political challenge Brussels as a social fabric has to
cope with in the near future.
The geographical development of Brussels
A socio-geographical profile
The municipality of Brussels reached its maximum popu-
lation eighty years ago, in 1923 (215,000 inhabitants as
against 134,000 in 2000). The BCR as a whole recorded
its maximum population of 1,079,200 inhabitants thirty-five
years ago, in 1968 (Jouret, 1972; Van der Haegen, 1982). In
the three decades between 1967 and 1997 the population of
the BCR declined from 1,074,586 to 950,597. An increase in
the number of foreigners from 140,056 to 284,038 (net result
of an excess of births over deaths of 103,704, a positive mi-
gration balance of 124,256 and 83,978 naturalizations) did
not compensate for the decline of the number of Belgian-
born from about 934,530 to 666,559 (net result of excess
of deaths over births of 110,539, negative migration balance
of 241,410) (De Lannoy et al., 1999, p. 105). The negative
net migration rate was the main cause of the decline of the
population. Since 1986 this has been counteracted by a small
excess of births over deaths, due to an ‘ethnic minority ef-
fect’ (a relatively young age structure and a relatively small
54
drop in fertility). This positive natural growth has become
large enough to cause an increase of the population from
1996 on, thereby compensating for a decreasing negative net
migration rate. Most recently the migration balance has be-
come positive. Nearly 30% of the population is of a foreign
nationality (Table 1). In spite of the positive natural growth
and the positive net migration rate of the foreign population,
this percentage is stabilizing. An increase is not to be expec-
ted because of the easy naturalization procedure introduced
in 2001 as an alternative for the politically unattainable right
to vote of non-EU citizens. More than half of the foreigners
are EU citizens, while 30% are Moroccans and Turks. In
1961 the population of foreign nationality was only 6.8% of
total population, and nearly 60% of them were EEC-citizens
(Table 2). At that time, the total number of Moroccans and
Turks in Belgium was 865.
The Brussels urban region has 1,750,000 inhabitants. In
comparison with the rest of the agglomeration and the urban
region, the BCR is characterized by a weak demography,
a high percentage of foreigners (particularly from Morocco
and Turkey), a high percentage of dwellings lacking basic
conveniences, a high percentage of persons unemployed and
registered for employment, a low income per inhabitant and
a low standard of living. As regards the 19 municipalit-
ies that make up the BCR, fourteen of them belong to two
extreme categories, being either: (i) municipalities with a
large or moderate number of foreigners from Morocco and
Turkey, characterized by very high percentages of dwell-
ings that lack basic conveniences, very high percentages of
persons unemployed and registered for employment, very
low incomes per inhabitant and very low standards of living;
or (ii) municipalities with a majority of non-Mediterranean
foreigners from within the EU, characterized by very low
percentages of dwellings that lack basic conveniences, low
or moderate percentages of persons unemployed and re-
gistered for employment, very high incomes per inhabitant
and very high standards of living. (Figure 1) All municip-
alities of the first ring of municipalities around the city of
Brussels, of which the territory has been built up entirely
or largely during the 19th century (henceforth called the
Inner City) belong to the first category. All the municipalit-
ies of the second category are situated in the south-eastern
part of the Region. This presents a picture of a divided
city, in which spatial segregation is coupled with increasing
socio-economic polarization.
Development towards a divided city
The spatial structure and the social structure of a city do not
necessarily coincide. It may be that socio-economic polar-
ization manifests itself by inequalities within urban zones
rather than between urban zones. It may also be that spa-
tial polarization occurs without a corresponding increase in
socio-economic polarization (the case of a segregated city).
If they do coincide, and spatial and socio-economic polar-
izations reinforce each other, the city may be described as
a divided city. Making use of these terms, the geographical
development of Brussels can be summarized as the gradual
transformation of a city with an unequal structure first into a
segregated city before the 1960s and then into a divided city
afterwards (Kesteloot, 1999).
The unequal structure is rooted in the industrial revolu-
tion and the ensuing diversification of social classes. The
spatial differentiation is effectuated according to a dual-
ist scheme, based on the interaction between the medieval
functions and the natural environment of the city. The poor
settled in a small swampy valley in the west, while the no-
bility settled on the wooded hills in the east. In the second
half of the 19th century subdivisions appear: in the west-
ern part the NNE-SSW manufacturing and working-class
axis, brought into existence by industrial development along
the Senne and the Antwerp-Brussels-Charleroi canal; in the
eastern part two prestigious axes of high social status, the
Avenue Louise and the Avenue de Tervuren, leading to the
Forest of Soignes. Segregation was enhanced by a num-
ber of initiatives, such as the building of large avenues and
boulevards covering the Senne (which had gradually become
the central sewer of the city), the construction of the Leopold
Quarter (the first prestige quarter outside the walls of the
city) at the end of the 19th century; the lay-out of social
housing in the form of garden districts outside the city; and
the construction of the first high standing blocks of flats near
the centre during the inter-war period. However, the segreg-
ation induced by this differentiation of the residential space
for historical reasons remained superficial and unsystem-
atic. There was a feeling of belonging to a common space:
although a national capital, Brussels behaved rather like a
provincial city.
These sectoral structures and peripheral social housing
are still recognizable in the socio-spatial organization of the
city, but their significance has considerably changed. On
the one hand, the internationalization of the city, character-
ized by the arrival of guest-workers as well as well-to-do
foreigners employed in the international organizations loc-
ated in Brussels, has reinforced the contrast between the
west and the east and between the labour axis NNE-SSW
and the bourgeois axes E-SE. On the other hand, a massive
suburbanization has superimposed an even more significant
concentric configuration on this scheme. To the degree that
suburbanization moves towards the periphery, this concent-
ric structure has first generated a contrast between the Inner
City and the other municipalities of the present-day BCR
(henceforth called the Outer City). Afterwards, the contrast
between the BCR as a whole and the rest of the urban re-
gion became prominent. The basic explanation for these
contrasts is well known. Since the middle of the 20th cen-
tury, the skilled and affluent population groups have moved
from the congested and unsafe central city towards the more
congenial and spacious residential areas in the suburbs and
the countryside. The unskilled and poor population groups
– such as elderly people, working-class families, margin-
alized population groups, singles and one-parent families –
remained in the old city districts of the Inner City, most of
which were working-class areas dating from the19th-century
period of industrialization. In many cases, Mediterranean
guest-workers and their families took the place of the young
people who had become more affluent and left these areas.

The transition to a divided city occurred in three phases.
In the 1960s and early 1970s the city posessed a segregated
structure. Increasing levels of education and the develop-
ment of tertiary activities made it possible for Belgians to
move up the social scale. The majority of the Brussels popu-
lation became middle class and started to spend a large part
of their higher income buying building land in the periphery
of the city. The unskilled guest-workers filled gaps in the
labour market in labour intensive activities. They landed up
in the residual rent sector of the housing market in the Inner
City districts.1 The strong suburbanization in this period was
linked to the success of keynesianism, reflected in full em-
ployment and income security. Therefore it is not surprising
that in the following period of economic crisis (1974–1985)
the migration balance of Belgians became less negative,
whereas the positive migration balance of foreigners sank
to a low level. The crisis also nullified the possibilities of
upward social mobility of the guest-workers, as Belgians
postponed loans on mortgage or settled in districts which
otherwise guest-workers would have moved to. The share of
the guest-workers in the Inner City districts increased due
to demographic factors: higher fertility, younger population
and, in spite of the migration stop imposed in 1974, continu-
ing migration (chain migration based on family reunification
and family creation), albeit at a much slower pace. However,
as unskilled and poor Belgian population groups kept on
living there, these districts did not develop into ghettos.
The economic revival after 1985 did not check the de-
velopment towards a divided city. On the contrary, the new
economy is characterized by lack of employment for the un-
skilled and, as a consequence, it does not offer opportunities
for upward social mobility. It also creates enclaves of mar-
ginalized labour markets.2 In the housing market a residual
purchase sector comes into existence. Turks and, to a lesser
degree, Moroccans buy houses in their concentration areas
as safeguarding against the uncertainties of the flexible new
economy, i.e., raising housing prices and the danger of being
displaced to other areas (Kesteloot et al., 1997). Chain mi-
gration, increasingly based on imported grooms and brides,
contributes heavily to the mutual reinforcement of spatial
and socio-economic (and cultural) polarization. The positive
migration balance of foreigners rose again to a high level
mainly as a result of this chain migration and of high refugee
migration into Belgium in general (Table 3). By 1990, the
migration balance of Belgians had become strongly negat-
ive. Since then net emigration is slowly diminishing. The
Outer City appears to become more international in a more
varied way than the Inner City. The Inner City also appears
to lose inhabitants to the Outer City, but both lose inhabitants
to the rest of the urban region.
Gentrification has been occurring in downtown Brussels
since the 1970s, but only on a small scale, and it is of
marginal importance in comparison with the settlement of
officials of European institutions and employees of multina-
tional corporations. In the late-1980s EU citizens settled in
the central city as well as in the southeastern Outer City,
but afterwards only the latter part of the BCR shows a pos-
itive net migration rate for these expatriates (Table 3). In
55
1961 two thirds of the non-Mediterranean EEC citizens lived
in the Inner City (proportional to the Belgian population),
but already then the Mediterranean EEC citizens (Italians)
were overrepresented in the Inner City (just as UK citizens
were overrepresented in the Outer City). The location of
the regional headquarters of multinational corporations in
Brussels began after the acts of 1959 on economic expan-
sion and regional development and this has transformed the
central city into an international CBD, and at the same time a
centre of political decision making, composed of three core
districts: the areas adjacent to the Brussels Park where the
national institutions are located, Schuman Square and Leo-
pold Quarter with its European institutions (started in 1958),
and North Quarter with most of the institutions of the feder-
ated entities. The NATO headquarters were transferred from
Paris to Evere in 1967. At present the BCR is the home of
more than 120 international government organizations, 1400
international non-governmental organizations and a number
of world and European interprofessional organizations. The
institutions of the EU now employ 19,000 people.
Economic profile of the BCR
Since the 1960s the economy of the BCR has been increas-
ingly dominated by the tertiary sector. In 1961, 170,000
people or nearly 30% of total working population were
active in manufacturing industry (Table 4). Brussels was
mentioned on Chardonnet’s map of the most important in-
dustrial complexes of Western Europe (Chardonnet, 1953,
p. 19), although at that time the share of manufacturing in
total employment was already significantly lower than the
Belgian average (location quotient: 0.83). In 1999, the num-
ber of industrial employees had decreased to 40,000 (and
the location quotient was only 0.38). The proportion of em-
ployment in financial institutions and services has doubled
from 36.5% to 72.9%, and each of these two secors recor-
ded an increase of 100,000 employees between 1961 and
1999. Also company directors and liberal professions are
overrepresented in the BCR (see the location quotients in
Table 5). The Brussels economy accounts for 19% of the
Belgian volume of trade and value added, and attracts 21%
of the investments. Table 6 shows the values of these eco-
nomic indicators for the different activity sectors. The BCR
with 9% of the population of Belgium accounts for 16% of
the working population. In 2000 658,788 people (resident in
Belgium) were active in the BCR, of which 45% lived in the
BCR itself, 36% in Flanders and 19% in Wallonia. 51,164
inhabitants of the BCR were working outside the Region, of
which 68% in Flanders, 25% in the Wallonia and 7% abroad
(Ministerie, 2001, p. 66).
Government structure of Belgium and Brussels
Federated and local governments in Belgium and the BCR
The Belgian federal state is made up of three regions and
three language communities. The regions are the BCR, the
56
Flemish Region and the Walloon Region. The BCR is com-
posed of 19 municipalities, one of which is the municipality
of Brussels. This municipality is also the capital of the
European Union, the Kingdom of Belgium, the BCR, the
Flemish Community and the French Community.3 The Bel-
gian state is also divided into four language regions, the
boundaries of which were determined in 1963. These lan-
guage regions have no powers, but delineate the regions
and communities: the Flemish Region coincides with the
Dutch language region, the Walloon Region coincides with
the French and German language regions, and the BCR co-
incides with the fourth language region, the bilingual region
of Brussels-Capital. The regions have powers relating to
territorial matters: town and country planning, the envir-
onment, housing, agriculture, energy, employment, public
works, transport, regional economic policy, external trade,
organic legislation, financing and administrative control of
the provinces and municipalities, and from 2004, develop-
ment aid. The communities (the Flemish Community, the
French Community and the German-speaking Community)
have powers in four categories: cultural issues, personal mat-
ters (health and social assistance), education, and the use
of language in administrative matters, education and social
relations between employers and employees. Each region
and community has a parliament (the Council), and an ex-
ecutive (the Government), and can issue decrees – or, in
the case of the BCR, ordinances – that have the force of
law. However, the councils and governments of the Flem-
ish Region and of the Flemish Community have merged
into a single Flemish Parliament and a single Flemish Gov-
ernment. Because some of its general legal rules (those in
the areas of town and country planning, public works and
transport) are subject to legal controls by the central state,
all general legal rules of the BCR are called ordinances
rather than decrees. The 75 members of the Brussels-Capital
Council are divided into a Dutch and a French linguistic
group. The number of Dutch-speaking and French-speaking
members depends on the results of the elections. The Brus-
sels Capital Government consists of a minister-president, 2
Dutch-speaking ministers and 2 French-speaking ministers.
It is assisted by three regional state secretaries. The parity
in the number of ministers in the Brussels Capital Govern-
ment is linked to the parity in the number of ministers in the
Belgian Government. Both parities are part of the safeguard-
ing of minorities: the Flemings are a minority in the BCR,
the Francophones are a minority in Belgium. The Flemish
Community exercises power in the Flemish language region,
the French Community in the French language region and
the German-speaking Community in the German language
region. The French Community may transfer certain powers
to the Walloon Region, and the Walloon Region may trans-
fer certain powers to the German-speaking Community. In
addition, the Flemish Community covers the Flemish insti-
tutions established in the bilingual region of Brussels Capital
and the French Community covers the French-speaking in-
stitutions established in that region. However, the decrees of
the Flemish and French Communities do not have the force
of law with regard to bilingual institutions or to individu-
als in the bilingual region of Brussels Capital, because the
principle of subnationality in Brussels has not been accep-
ted. The corresponding community powers are exercised by
other organizations, the Commission of the Flemish Com-
munity, the Commission of the French Community and the
Commission of the Joint Communities, each of which has
its own assembly and college. The Commission of the Joint
Communities can pass ordinances, which have the force of
law, but its power is restricted to personal matters. The Com-
missions of the French and the Flemish Communities, which
can also act as organizers of unilingual institutions, can issue
by-laws, which are lower in the hierarchy of legal rules than
decrees or ordinances, and are comparable to the by-laws
issued by provinces or municipalities. However, the French
Community may transfer certain powers to the Commission
of the French Community, and, as a consequence, the latter
has the power to issue decrees on the matters concerned.
Formerly the bilingual region of Brussels Capital was
part of the province of Brabant, which was divided into
two provinces, Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant, in
1995. As the region of Brussels Capital no longer belongs
to a province, the provincial powers in the 19 municipalities
are exercised by the Communities, the Commissions and the
Region.
As the successor of the Brussels Agglomeration, the
BCR also discharges certain responsibilities elsewhere as-
signed to the municipalities, such as fire-fighting and emer-
gency medical assistance, removal and processing of waste,
urban public transportation, and coordination of municipal
activities. The Brussels Agglomeration (composed of the 19
municipalities) was set up in 1971 and is the only case in
which use is made of the possibility, created by the Con-
stitution, of setting up agglomerations and federations of
municipalities as an alternative to large-scale amalgamation
of municipalities.4 Yet a few years later large-scale amal-
gamation had become politically feasible and the Belgian
government passed on to a major merger operation. The
2,379 municipalities of Belgium were consolidated into the
present 589 municipalities by the Act of 30-12-1975. Com-
munity tensions and the stubbornness of local politicians
have prevented the application of the Act to the 19 mu-
nicipalities of Brussels. Afterwards the foundation of the
BCR in 1989 and the turn of thought concerning amalgam-
ations pushed the issue into the background. Nowadays,
and learned by experience (the example of Antwerp, where
the Act became effective only in 1983 and where, after-
wards, a subdivision in districts imposed itself), attention is
paid to the democratic quality of municipal government and
administrative structures tailored to the needs of the local
communities rather than to the enlargement of governing
power and the improvement of efficiency of provision of
services through specialization (Deschouwer and Buelens,
1999).
In summary, from the administrative viewpoint, the
Brussels metropolitan area or urban region is composed of
(i) municipalities that are part of the provinces of Flemish
Brabant and Walloon Brabant and Hainaut, of the Flem-
ish Region and the Walloon Regions, and of the linguistic

regions in which the Flemish and the French Communit-
ies exercise power, and (ii) 19 municipalities that make up
the BCR, coinciding with the bilingual region of Brussels
Capital. The BCR is a member state of the federal state
of Belgium. The bilingual region of Brussels Capital is the
linguistic region in which the Flemish and French Com-
munities, and the Commissions of the Flemish, French and
Joint Communities, exercise power. The BCR, the Flemish
and French Communities and the Commission of the Joint
Communities are federated entities. The Commission of the
Flemish Community is a decentralized division of the Flem-
ish Community. The Commission of the French Community
is at the same time a federated entity and a decentralized
division of the French Community. Thus, there are two ad-
ministrative tiers in Brussels Capital, only one of which is
on the level of local government (the municipalities). The
nearest equivalent to a genuine metropolitan government is
the Brussels Agglomeration, but its (very limited) respons-
ibilities are discharged by the BCR. It should be kept in
mind that the Brussels metropolitan area (and even the Brus-
sels morphological agglomeration) extends far beyond the
boundaries of this two-tier entity.
Origin and bearing of the federalization of Belgium
This complicated administrative structure has been set up to
meet two aspirations, the guarding and promotion of cultural
identity of linguistic communities and the disposal of a ter-
ritory in which an own-policy can be pursued (Corijn et al.,
2000). The Flemings aimed rather at cultural autonomy and
headed for a federalization in two entities with a special stat-
ute for Brussels, where they are in a minority position. The
Francophones headed for a federalization in three entities
with Brussels on the same footing as Flanders and Wallo-
nia. This difference can be explained by the long-lasting
inferior position of the Dutch-speakers in the Belgian state
and society, and by changes in the geography of economic
development, which were perceived as a change in the eco-
nomic fortunes of Flanders and Wallonia, putting the latter
in an economically subordinate position since the crises in
the steel industry and coal mining after World War II.5 Al-
though Flemish politicians stressed the necessity of cultural
autonomy, there is no mistaking that Flemings wanted their
political power to match their recently acquired economic
power (Saey et al., 1998). The result of a series of consti-
tutional reforms (1970, 1980, 1988, and 1993) to meet the
two aspirations is the twofold federalization in three com-
munities and in three regions. The constitutional reforms
were worked out in the Special Acts of 1980 on the insti-
tutions of the Flemish Community, the Flemish Region, the
French Community and the Walloon Region (amended in
1988, 1989, 1993, 2001), the 1989 Act on the institutions
of the BCR (amended in 1989, 1993, 2001), the1989 Act
on the financing of communities and regions (amended in
1993, 2001), and in the Act of 1983 on the institutions of the
German-speaking Community (amended in 1990, 1993).6
Each amendment enlarged the powers of the communities
and regions. Some of the matters involved were the exclusive
domain of the federated entities from the beginning, others
57
have become their exclusive domain and still others are still
divided among the federal state and the federated entities.
At present, the federal state has residual powers and none
of the federated entities has the right to draw up an own-
constitution. On the other hand, regions and communities
are entitled by the Belgian constitution to conclude interna-
tional treaties in the domains which are inside the scope of
their powers without interference of the federal state. With
regard to personal and related matters, the bilingual region
of Brussels Capital is governed by the Flemish and French-
speaking Communities and their Brussels divisions. With
regard to territorial matters, the region forms a member state.
However, although the Brussels Capital Region has the same
powers as the Flemish and the Walloon Regions, it is not the
equal of these two other member states: it issues ordinances
and not decrees, and it has no constitutive autonomy.7 The
political limitation of the metropolitan area to the bilingual
region of Brussels Capital complies with the demand of the
Flemings to block the frenchifying of the surroundings of
Brussels.
The Belgian welfare state
The BCR and the other federated entities and their divisions
which govern the bilingual region of Brussels Capital parti-
cipate in the general system of provision of collective goods.
In Belgium, collective goods are provided at all government
levels by central, federated and local governments. The sys-
tem of social services is regulated by the public authorities,
but professional social organizations, trade unions, med-
ical insurance associations, employers’ federations, farmers’
associations and associations of small business operators
participate in policy-making, management and execution by
means of a network of deliberative, advisory and governing
bodies and conceded administrative executive services and
local initiatives. The state creates the legal framework, but
social organizations formulate and implement initiatives to
a large degree. This model typifies education (community,
provincial, municipal and private education), social housing
(local social housing companies), health care (medical in-
surance associations, public and Catholic hospitals), welfare
(municipal Public Centres for Social Welfare, responsible
for relief and promoting social integration, and non-profit
associations) and especially social security. This reflects the
development of the Belgian welfare state from 19th-century
local initiatives, mainly workers’ organizations (Deleeck,
1992, p. 189–190).
Metropolitanization through regionalization
The circumscription of the BCR as the third region of Bel-
gium brought with it a de facto metropolitanization. The
budget structure of the BCR and its 19 municipalities and the
budget structure of the other regions and their municipalities
show some typical differences that are connected with the
functioning of Brussels as a metropolis in both senses of
large city and of capital city. With regard to public services,
the federalization of Belgium involved not only the setting
58
up of regional administrations, but also the regionalization –
and thus, in the BCR, metropolitanization – of a number of
public interest organizations. Finally, the transfer of powers
from the central state to the regions implied, in the case of
the BCR, a metropolitanization of corresponding responsib-
ilities, such as planning or housing (which are exclusively
regional powers, i.e., there is no longer town and country
planning or housing policy at the national level).
Budget structure
Suburbanization led to a decline in the fiscal capacity of
the BCR where it concerns personal income taxes. This de-
cline continues in spite of the recent demographic changes
(Table 7).8 However, the BCR is now entitled to the federal
solidarity contribution for the regions with a lower fiscal
capacity than the national average. Furthermore the fiscal
capacity of the BCR as regards other types of taxes is much
higher than that of the other regions. As a result, the fiscal
receipts per inhabitant of the BCR are considerably higher
than those of the Flemish and Walloon Regions (by 17 and
10%, respectively in 1998) (Heremans and Philipsen, 1999,
p. 240). Nevertheless, the BCR has resorted to debt fin-
ancing to the extent that the ratio of outstanding debts to
total receipts had mounted to 2.10 in 1994 (ibidem, p. 227).
Since then this ratio has declined to about 1.15, partly due to
the changes in the financing mechanisms of the regions and
communities which made higher receipts possible and high
debt repayment feasible.
There are four sources of finance for the regions and for
the French and Flemish Communities. These are as follows:
shared taxes (regions and communities receive a portion of
federal tax in proportion to the part of this tax levied on
the territory of the region or community concerned); re-
gional and community taxes; non-fiscal revenues (receipts
from property and activities); and loans. Shared taxes are
the Value-Added Tax (VAT), which is shared by the federal
government and the communities, and the income tax, which
is shared by the federal government, the regions and the
communities. The shared taxes are by far the most important
source of revenue for the regions and communities, except
for the BCR since 2002. The share of income tax (including
the above-mentioned solidarity contribution) accounted for
about 60% of the revenue of the BCR until 2002, when it
was reduced to one-third. This share is low in comparison
with the Walloon Region (two-thirds, reduced to 50% in
2002), the French Community (90%, including VAT) and
the Flemish Community/Region (90%, reduced to 75% in
2002, including VAT). Regional taxes can be autonomous
taxes, levied by a region in its own right, or transferred
taxes, which are levied by the federal state and transferred
to the regions. The latter include traffic tax, registration fees,
death duties and a number of taxes of minor importance, and
a small share of the more significant land tax. Until 2002,
the transferred taxes accounted for 20% of the revenue of
the BCR, in 2002 they accounted for 44%. This increase is
a result of the extension of transferred taxes by a revision
of the Special Act of 1989 on the financing of regions and
communities, which implied a change of the ratio between
shared and transferred taxes.9 In the BCR, autonomous taxes
account for only 5%, and 7% is derived from taxes levied by
or transferred to the BCR in its capacity as an agglomeration
(Boon et al., 1990).
The total amount of the budgets of the 19 municipalit-
ies is as large as the total of the budgets of the region and
the commissions. Municipalities obtain revenue from five
sources: municipal taxes and surtaxes; funds, including gen-
eral grants (of which the Municipal Fund is by far the most
important), and specific grants of the block type; subsidies
(specific grants of the matching type); property and pay-
ments for municipal services; and profit sharing in local state
enterprises. As capital city of Belgium, the municipality of
Brussels receives an additional endowment, registered in the
budget of the federal Finance Department. Taxes account for
45% of the revenue of the 19 municipalities of the BCR,
funds for 18%, specific grants for 18% and profit sharing
for 7%. About 20 years ago (in 1980), the grants from the
Municipal Fund still exceeded the revenue from taxes, but
by 1990, the share of the funds was reduced to 24% and
the share of the taxes had risen to the present level. The
increasing importance of taxes is a general trend occurring
in the other two regions as well, but what sets the BCR apart
is the share of revenue provided by surtaxes on land. These
made up 26% of the total revenue of the 19 municipalities,
compared to 11% from the additional tax on income and 7%
from the municipal taxes. The corresponding values in the
Walloon Region are 15%, 15% and 8%, and in the Flemish
Region 19%, 18% and 8%, respectively. (Claerhout, 2000;
Flohimont, 1999; Van Hecke and Cardyn, 1984).
Because of its metropolitan character, total expenditure
per inhabitant of the Region itself and of the 19 municipalit-
ies is much higher than in the other regions. As far as it con-
cerns the municipalities, this is largely due to the expenditure
of the municipality of Brussels (amounting to nearly 3,500
euro per inhabitant). In general, total expenditure per inhab-
itant of the other municipalities does not deviate significantly
from that of strongly urbanized municipalities of the same
population in the other regions. The Brussels municipalit-
ies allocate very little of their expenditure to roads and to
sanitation and urbanization, but this is compensated by the
large expenses of the Region for equipment and transport
and for housing and urban planning via among other things
regionalized public interest organizations (Table 8). On the
other hand, expenditures for economy and employment are
conspicuously low despite higher unemployment rates. This
can be explained, on the one side, by the fact that the BCR
is not an economic region, and, on the other side, by the
mismatch between the dominance of the tertiary sector and
the poor schooling of especially foreign workers.10
Administrative structure
Regional policies concerning certain matters were made pos-
sible for the first time by the Act of 1974, which pertained
to the following: housing, town and country planning and
nature conservation, environment and water management,
economy, employment and energy policy, local authorities,
finance and budget. After the foundation of the BCR in 1989,

regional policies were based on appropriate ordinances. The
main tool for implementing the policies of the Brussels Gov-
ernment is the Brussels Capital Region Ministry, divided
into five administrations, the Local Authorities Administra-
tion, the Finance and Budget Administration, the Equipment
and Transport Administration, the Housing and Urban Plan-
ning Administration and the Economy and Employment
Administration. Like the Belgian state and the other member
states, the BCR entrusts various public missions to public
interest organizations and to non-profit organizations of, in
this case, regional interest.
There are several types of public interest organizations:
organizations which depend directly on the Ministry, organ-
izations run by a board of directors or by a management unit
under the authority of one or several concerned Minister(s),
and organizations with a larger degree of autonomy. The
former includes, e.g., the Regional Agency for Cleanliness,
the Brussels Institute for Management of the Environment,
the Brussels Regional Fire Brigade and Medical Emergency
Service. The second includes the Brussels Regional Employ-
ment Office, the Brussels Regional Housing Corporation
and the Port of Brussels Regional Corporation.11 The latter
includes the Brussels Regional Development Agency, the
Brussels Regional Investment Company and the Brussels
Public Transport Company. Most of these regional public
interest organizations came into existence through dissolu-
tion of national organizations or were founded as such in the
course of the federalization process since the late 70s. The
Brussels Public Transport Company, responsible for trans-
port by underground, tram and bus, was founded in 1954, but
its present statute dates from 1990.12 It was the first public
interest organization in Belgium to conclude a management
contract with a regional government.
Non-profit making organizations of regional interest are,
e.g., Technopol (offers services to the enterprises that de-
velop technology in the areas of communication, health,
agrofood and the precision tool industry), Teleport (pro-
motes access to advanced telematics applications for small
and medium-sized enterprises and trains multilingual call
centre operators), Brussels Congress (department of Brus-
sels International – Tourism and Congress, promoting the
BCR as an international conference location), The Brussels-
Europe Liaison Office (ensures a quality welcome for in-
ternational and, in particular, European institutions), Brus-
sels Energy Agency (consulting service with regard to
any question dealing with energy), Guarantee Fund of the
Brussels Region (aimed at facilitating the access of small
and medium-sized enterprises to business credit), Eurore-
gio (group of economic interest uniting five regions: BCR,
Flemish Region, Kent, Nord-Pas de Calais and the Walloon
Region).
The BCR also tries to mobilize private capital by means
of public-private partnerships, but without much success up
to now, although some partnerships have been realized in the
field of urban renewal and of waste and water treatment.
59
A truncated metropolis in expansion without a strategy
A medal with two sides
Brussels is one of the most successful metropolises in the
world in terms of international inter-city competitiveness. In
these times of sectoral and spatial volatility of capital and
the accordingly increasing porosity of national boundaries,
regions and cities enter into fierce international and national
competition with each other, trying to attract R&D and high-
tech production or production with high value added, to raise
consumption (through immigration of well-to-do people and
supply of tourist attractions, cultural and sporting events,
conferences) and to obtain political and economic decision
power (Harvey, 1985). Brussels has succeeded in all these
fields to such a degree that it can be classed in a category of
its own, a specialized world city in the European economic
space, after London and Paris, but ahead of secondary inter-
national cities such as Frankfurt, Madrid, Rome or Zurich.
This outstanding position is primarily based on its role of
international political centre of decision-making, but also
on its role of international business centre.13 Although the
presence of EU-institutions undoubtedly has a ’pull’ ef-
fect on the locational choice of multinational corporations
and banks looking to establish European headquarters and
subsidiaries, the image of an advanced urban economy –
with a central location in Europe, excellent international
transport links (HST and other railway connections, air-
port, motorways), good telecommunications, competitive
cost for property and for living, educated and multilin-
gual labour force, favourable tax arrangements – is of at
least equal importance in this respect. (Elmhorn, 1998). As
already implied in Chardonnet’s concept of industrial com-
plex, Brussels is characterized by a whole of local assets and
interdependencies which attracts international agents.
The regional administration, the relevant organizations
of public interest and the non-profit making organizations of
regional interest play their part in this success story, but their
role is overshadowed by the Belgian government, not only
with regard to the location of NATO and the EU-institutions,
but also with regard to the development of Brussels as an
international business centre. General measures taken by
the Belgian government to attract investment automatically
benefit Brussels because it simply is the first metropolis of
the country. A clear example is the special tax arrangement
for co-ordination centres (introduced in 1982), allowing
multinational corporations to carry out a large number of
financial and other operations virtually tax free. More than
half of these centres were established in Brussels (Vander-
motten, 1983). Oddly enough the ascent of Brussels as a
world city has not been hampered by the fragmented govern-
mental structure. The explanation is rather straightforward.
The revenue of the Region and the municipalities depends
for the greater part on taxes and grants that are directly
or indirectly linked to household income, and, in the case
of the municipalities, on surtaxes on land revenue. As a
consequence a municipality has everything to gain by at-
tracting wealthy people and corporations and organizations
that enhance the value of property. The result is some kind
60
of alliance/collusion of politicians of all government levels
(including the European one) with real estate agents, prop-
erty developers and speculators.14 This alliance/collusion
may be held responsible for the reinforcement of the social
and spatial polarization of the BCR. Already in the 70s the
search for space to build offices has led to heavily contested
urban development projects and operations. Since the late
80s the expansion of four areas (the CBD/North Quarter, the
European district, the canal zone and the South Quarter with
the HST rail station) generates spatial pressures in a way
that reminds of the Burgess model (Kesteloot, 1992; Meert,
1992). The result is a sharpening of the contrast between the
eastern and western parts of the city, on top of the classical
problems of insecurity, environmental pollution and traffic
congestion.
The urban project
In principle, the BCR disposes of an instrument of all-
embracing socio-economic planning to meet the challenges
of international competition and sustainable development as
well as the challenges of a more local nature, namely the Re-
gional Development Plan.15 Its legal basis is the ordinance of
1991 on the organization of urban planning. This ordinance
defines two levels of spatial planning and development, the
regional and the municipal. The Region and each of the mu-
nicipalities draw up a development plan and a land use plan.
A land use plan conforms to a development plan and the mu-
nicipal plans conform to the regional plans. Land use plans
are binding, development plants are binding upon the public
authorities. The first Regional Land Attribution Plan came
into effect in 2001. It is based on the first Regional Devel-
opment Plan, dating from 1995. This RDP presented itself
as an answer to two challenges: stabilization, or even in-
crease, of a diversified population and increase of economic
activities and investments guaranteeing social progress and
quality of life. The main objective was to realize a mixed
urban community by replacing the selective emigration to-
wards the suburbs by a selective immigration, both as an end
in itself and as a means to enhance the fiscal capacity of the
Region. The most striking characteristic was its defensive
attitude toward the developments that explain the success
of Brussels as an international administrative and business
centre. This attitude was made concrete in the measures
to control the expansion of offices and to valorize manu-
facturing industry. It can be explained by fear of pressure
on the real estate market and by traumas caused by some
urban development operations in the past which were very
destructive to the urban tissue or by the architectural poverty
of the CBD. (Vandermotten, 1994). Since 1995 population
increases, but for other reasons than the RDP preconceived
(as can be deduced from the relative decrease of fiscal capa-
city and the spatial concentration of poverty). The economy
noted a revival, but more to the benefit of the commuters than
the inhabitants. A third challenge, besides a diversified pop-
ulation and a sustainable economic development (avoiding
overspecialisation in administrative functions), was added
in the second RDP of 2002: integration of the international
and cultural character of Brussels in projects which realize
sustainable development based on a strong identity. This
second RDP formulates twelve priorities: strengthening res-
idential attractiveness and promotion of social equilibrium,
stimulation of economic activities in view of local employ-
ment, social housing, urban renewal aiming at a mixture of
urban functions and population groups, land use policy, city
marketing, meeting social needs (education, family policy,
health care, relief, care of the disabled), increase of the share
of urban public transport in total transport and integration of
the regional express network into the urban transport net-
work, environmental protection, image building by means
of prestige projects stressing the intercultural, international
and European character of Brussels, safety, and R&D.16
All kinds of existing institutions, instruments and plans are
mobilized to realize this urban project, e.g., the public in-
terest organizations and the non-profit making organizations
of regional interest, the Brussels Institute of Environmental
Management, the Cleanliness Plan, the Regional Waste Plan,
the IRIS Plan (mobility and transport plan), cleanliness
contracts, neighbourhood contracts, safety contracts, com-
munity contracts. The BCR has the intention to observe
the international agreements concluded or to be concluded
by the Belgian government concerning environmental issues
(the Kyoto Protocol, the Convention of Geneva, the Treaty of
Vienna), largely by means of measures in the transport sector
(reduction of motor traffic) and measures of rational energy
consumption. It also wants to participate in the European
INTERREG-programme and in the European and Benelux
spatial planning and development projects. As a matter of
fact, consultation between the three Belgian regions takes
place not on the national level, but on these supra-national
levels. (http://www.gewop.irisnet.be).
Assessment
The RDP is presented as a strategic plan. Actually it func-
tions as a framework for physical planning only (cf. Van-
dermotten, 1994). This is no surprise as its legal basis is
the ordinance on town and country planning. Nevertheless
this limited bearing of the RDP is also a sign of impotence
(cf. Baeten, 2001). Apparently there is no hegemonic bloc
capable of developing a consensus on the future identity of
Brussels as a world city, e.g. a cosmopolitan city which
renders account of its cultural diversity, allowing among
other things the empowerment of (ethnic) neighbourhoods,
or a European metropolis in the sense of a District of Europe.
The absence of such a consensus explains why, e.g., the dis-
cussion of the issue of the approaching extension of the EU
is limited to a cordial welcome, coupled with a reassuring
calculation of the required m2 of office surface area. The
consensus fails to occur because of the community tensions
between Flemings who are in the majority in Belgium and
Francophones who are in the majority in Brussels and the
confinement of the BCR to 19 municipalities as a means
of pacification. This confinement turns a large part of the
inhabitants of the Brussels urban region into users instead
of residents of the metropolitan area. The residents are Bel-
gians and EU citizens mainly living in the Outer City, and
the poor non-EU citizens mainly living in the Inner City.

The latter are politically and culturally voiceless. The in-
habitants of the rest of the urban region together with the
commuters from outside the urban region are not directly
involved in Brussels policymaking. Nonetheless they actu-
ally exercise influence via the federal policymaking17 and
the strong connections between the Brussels and other politi-
cians through their membership of the same subnational
parties.18 In these circumstances the forming of a hegemonic
bloc able to think of Brussels as being a world city becomes
a Sisyphean task. The Democratic Front of French-speakers
(a formation of Brussels interest groups which seeks to pre-
serve the French character of Brussels) has the plurality in a
number of municipalities and forms since 1995 an alliance
with the Liberal Reformation Party on the regional level,
being by far the largest political group in the BCR. The
Walloons have chosen Namur as their capital. The Flem-
ings nourish a distrust of the big city, that goes back to
the Christian-democratic policies pursued from the end of
the 19th century, which were directed at the preservation of
the values of the Christian family and at the protection of
the working class against socialism.19 The chain migration
which contributes in a not inconsiderable way to the increase
of the number of poor non-EU residents strengthens cultural
(ethnic and religious) conservatism (Lesthaeghe et al., 2001,
pp. 28–29). The situation is worsened by the rise of extreme-
right wing parties which show electoral success especially in
the cities on the basis of an anti-urban programme directed
against cultural diversity. The National Front may remain
a small party, crumbling away after its relative success in
1995, but the Flemish Bloc (which has won the plurality
in Antwerp, the largest city of Flanders) has become the
largest Flemish party in the BCR (Table 9). The Burgess-like
problems and the rise of right extremism necessitate a vision
on Brussels that should be more than a mere framework
for physical planning. However, as political things stand,
the elaboration of such a vision is something like trying to
square the circle.
Conclusion
In terms of metropolitan government, Brussels is a special
case due to the embeddedness of the capital city in the
Belgian socio-spatial fault lines. When the Brussels Capital
Region was created, the institutional structure was largely
influenced by the complex equilibrium between the Flemish
and the Francophone communities. Inside the Region, the
Dutch speaking population is a well protected minority and
this is balanced on the national level by equal political power
for the French speaking population despite its minor demo-
graphic weight. Another, related, source of the Brussels
peculiarities is the joint effect of the development of the cap-
ital city and the very strong postwar suburbanization process
in Belgium. When Brussels became the Capital of Belgium
in 1831, the elite was completely French speaking, whatever
the geographical origin or social class of its members. Thus
Flanders had an urban French speaking bourgeoisie and the
Dutch language (at that time merely a collection of local
dialects) was regarded as the language of the lower class.
61
Brussels grew rapidly both as a consequence of the indus-
trial revolution and the development of the Belgian state
and many immigrants in the city became French speaking.
This process of acculturation has been overwhelming until
the 1960s when Flanders experienced a strong economic im-
pulse through foreign investments and saw the emergence of
a more self-conscious Flemish elite.
Since the Brussels Capital Region forms an enclave in
the Flemish Region, the suburbanization of French speaking
middle class households outside the urban agglomeration
means that Flemish territory is gradually turned into French
speaking area, a question to which the Flemings are very
sensitive since they fought during several generations for
their cultural emancipation and equal rights for the Dutch
language in the Belgian state. The Flemish majority at the
national level, would never agree with the extension of the
Brussels Capital Region, because it would mean the con-
version of a Flemish into a bilingual territory.20 This makes
the creation of any form of government of the Brussels
metropolitan area a very difficult task.
One more socio-political problem is further complicating
the issue. The 800,000 inhabitants of the Brussels metropol-
itan area living outside the Brussels Capital Region, are in
their large majority there as a result of suburbanization. In
the Belgian context, this means their presence results from a
deliberate choice to leave the city for an open, but socio-
economically very homogeneous middle class residential
environment. They are in other words city users but no city
dwellers any more. The long history of anti-urban feelings
in Belgium (Kesteloot and De Maesschalck, 2000) helps to
understand they are not prepared for great solidarity with the
inner city inhabitants. In fact they use the city without paying
for it since they pay their taxes in the Flemish or the Walloon
Region. Enlarging the territory of the Brussels Capital Re-
gion to encompass the whole metropolitan area would thus
mean to strengthen the political parties that tend to manage
the city more according to the interests of its users than to
those of its inhabitants, or more for the urban periphery than
for the heart of the city.
Considering the rather rigid character of the limits of the
Brussels Capital Region, the salient political problem is that
Brussels, like the other large cities in Belgium, continues
to loose affluent inhabitants, despite the temporarily slow-
down of the suburbanization process during the crisis and the
weak signs of gentrification during the postfordist revival.
The remaining population increasingly becomes poorer in
relative terms. In the long run, this undermines the finan-
cial basis of the urban government, both at the regional and
the municipal level. Brussels appears in a complex catch 22
situation. In order to have more financial means to sustain
expansion, to fight the urban divisions, to develop urban
projects, Brussels has to bring middle class households to
the city. But exactly this policy will have negative effects on
the poor (social displacement and overconcentration in the
poorest neighbourhoods), reinforce socio-spatial polarisa-
tion and will ask for even more financial means (and space)
to restore the fiscal basis. This negative cycle could only
be broken by interregional solidarity, which could easily be
62
justified by the fact that suburbanization creates three types
of negative redistribution of financial means for the Brussels
Capital Region and its municipalities. Indeed selective out-
migration means a relative rise in poverty in the centre and
creates more needs; the same process creates less income
for the Region and for its 19 municipalities since a large part
of it depends on local taxes on personal income of their in-
habitants and on land income; the suburban population uses
collective amenities in the centre for which it does not pay.
Thus the city in its present state appears as socially unstable
as long as more solidarity within the metropolitan com-
munity is not achieved. But in turn this would imply a very
unlikely form of political voluntarism from the politicians
representing the suburban population (today they tend to ex-
plain the problems of the large cities more in terms of their
lack of competitiveness than in terms of the socio-economic
effects of suburbanization). In such a situation, one could
predict a more repressive city. The confrontation between
poor and rich, inhabitants and customers of the city offers no
opportunities for confrontation, negotiation and consensus
about a common urban future if the latter turn their back
to the urban problems. The response to growing tensions is
more repression, in order to secure the use of the inner city
by the suburbans. Ironically, the costs of repression would
be borne by the city itself, not by the suburban city users.
Such a gloomy scenario could only be broken up by a strong
urban project, calling for the support of all members of the
metropolitan community.
Notes
1
The residual rent sector is composed of old dwellings, in
which the owners do not invest anymore because the original
investment costs are already recovered (Kesteloot, 1986). It
is the only segment of the housing market which is access-
ible to households who cannot pay the prices asked in the
other sectors of the housing market or who are excluded for
some reason from the social housing sector (less than 8% of
the total supply of dwellings in Brussels).
2 The most vulnerable labour market in Cooke’s classi-
fication for spatially discontinuous labour markets (‘illegal
immigrants, criminalized, male and female non-citizens’,
located in ‘regional-metropolitan and primate city ethnic
enclaves, ‘inner city”; main determinants: ‘demand for
‘sweated’ labour, growth of informal or ‘black economy”)
(Cooke, 1983, p. 223).
3 More accurately, Brussels is the seat of the Council (to-
gether with Luxemburg), of the Parliament (together with
Strasbourg), of the Commission, of the Economic and So-
cial Committee and of the Committee of the Regions. As
a number of these institutions are located in Etterbeek, it
may be argued that ’Brussels’ means the BCR rather than
the municipality.
4 Federations of municipalities at the edge of the Brussels
Agglomeration have also been set up, but they were abol-
ished in 1976. The Brussels Agglomeration still exists as an
institution possessing legal personality. Consequently, when
the BCR adopts regulations concerning the above-mentioned
responsibilities, she acts not as a federated entity, issuing
ordinances, but as an agglomeration, issuing by-laws.
5 The first area on the continent to adopt the industrial re-
volution was located in Wallonia, whereas Flanders was
largely a economically backward area until the end of the
19th century.
6 A special act requires a majority of votes in both linguistic
groups of both Chambers of Parliament and a 3/4 majority
of total votes.
7 Constitutive autonomy means that the communities and
regions are entitled to regulate themselves some aspects
of the election, the composition and the functioning of
their councils and executives. Only the Flemish Parliament,
the Walloon Regional Council and the French Community
Council possess constitutive autonomy.
8 In 1963 the average taxable income per inhabitant in the
Brussels agglomeration was 60% higher than the Belgian
average, in 1975 it was 28% higher, in 1985 6%, in 1995
it was 7% lower (Kesteloot, 1999, p. 167).
9 In the Walloon Region the share of the transferred taxes
in the regional revenue increased from 10 to 29%, in the
Flemish Community/Region from 7 to 17% (Boon et al.,
2002, actuele ontwikkelingen, nr.1).
10 15% of the full unemployed entitled to a benefit in
Belgium live in the BCR. 38% of them are foreigners (Min-
isterie, 2001, pp. 50, 54).
11 Brussels possesses a seaport, accessible to ships weighing
up to 4,500 tonnes. Shipping traffic amounts to 5.9 million
tonnes. The port provides 12,000 jobs, of which 8,000 direct
jobs (http://www.brussel.irisnet.be).
12 Public transport by train is organized by the National
Company of Belgian Railways and part of the Brussels pub-
lic transport by bus is organized by the Flemish and Walloon
public transport companies.
13 Brussels is by far the leading city in the world meas-
ured in number of secretariats of international organizations
(Elmhorn, 1998, p. 94). With 159 embassies and 2500
diplomats it is the second largest diplomatic city in the
world (http://www.brussel.irisnet.be). It appears to be a beta
world city in the GaWC-roster of world cities. Following
Sassen, the GaWC-ranking uses corporate service criteria
(the presence of global legal services and global services
in accountancy, advertising and banking) and results in a
classification of 10 alpha, 10 beta and 35 gamma world cities
(Beaverstock et al., 1999) (GaWC stands for ‘Globalization
and world cities study group and network’, based in Lough-
boury University, Department of Geography). For another
assessment of the position of Brussels in the European in-
termetropolitan competition, see Vandermotten et al., 1999;
Vandermotten, 1999.
14 To call this a national (European) urban growth coalition
in the sense of Terhorst and van de Ven, 1995 would be a
great exaggeration (see also Swyngedouw, 1999). For the
role of real estate agents, property developers and speculat-
ors (which may include public interest organizations, such
as the National Society of Belgian Railways), see Timmer-
mans, 1991; Decorte, 1992.
15 Of course the BCR also disposes of instruments to tackle

all kinds of problems separately, but a discussion of these
instruments is outside the scope of this article.
16 The (yet to be realized) regional express network is a
network of fast trains intended to facilitate commuting and
other traffic covering an area even larger than the Brussels
urban region.
17 The bilingual region of Brussels-Capital and the district
of Halle-Vilvoorde in the Flemish Region form a single con-
stituency for the federal elections.
18 There are no national parties in Belgium. Also the non-
regionalist parties are either Flemish or Francophone.
19 These policies promoted individual property and facilit-
ated commuting. Together with the absence of an efficient
urban planning, they must be held responsible for the excess-
ive proportions of suburbanization in Belgium (Kesteloot,
1999).
20 But see also Terhorst and Van de Ven (1997) for a more
general explanation of the internal fragmentation and the
external confinment of Brussels.
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