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 C O M P A R AT I V E T E R R I T O R I A L P O L I T I C S

Inequality and Governance

in the Metropolis
Place Equality Regimes and Fiscal Choices
in Eleven Counties

Edited by Jefferey M. Sellers, Marta Arretche,

Daniel Kübler & Eran Razin
Comparative Territorial Politics

Series Editors
Michael Keating
University of Aberdeen
Aberdeen, United Kingdom

Arjan Schakel
Maastricht University
Maastricht, The Netherlands

Michaël Tatham
University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway
Territorial politics is one of the most dynamic areas in contemporary polit-
ical science. Rescaling, new and re-emergent nationalisms, regional devo-
lution, government, federal reform and urban dynamics have reshaped
the architecture of government at sub-state and transnational levels, with
profound implications for public policy, political competition, democracy
and the nature of political community. Important policy fields such as
health, education, agriculture, environment and economic development
are managed at new spatial levels. Regions, stateless nations and met-
ropolitan areas have become political arenas, contested by old and new
political parties and interest groups. All of this is shaped by transnational
integration and the rise of supranational and international bodies like the
European Union, the North American Free Trade Area and the World
Trade Organization. The Comparative Territorial Politics series brings
together monographs, pivot studies, and edited collections that further
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cover topics such as public opinion, government formation, elections,
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Jefferey M. Sellers • Marta Arretche • Daniel Kübler • Eran Razin
Editors

Inequality and
Governance in the
Metropolis
Place Equality Regimes and Fiscal Choices
in Eleven Counties
Editors
Jefferey M. Sellers Marta Arretche
University of Southern California University of São Paulo
Los Angeles, USA São Paulo, Brazil

Daniel Kübler Eran Razin

University of Zurich The Hebrew University
Zurich, Switzerland Jerusalem, Israel

Comparative Territorial Politics

ISBN 978-1-137-57377-3    ISBN 978-1-137-57378-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57378-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958045

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 Preface

Regimes of place equality, the concept at the core of this book, are an
understudied component of the modern welfare state. If welfare states can
be conceived as institutional devices to guarantee solidarity among indi-
viduals belonging to a nationwide political community, regimes of place
equality are the mechanisms that organize fiscal solidarity among jurisdic-
tions in charge of providing services to citizens. They consist of those
policies, governance strategies and institutions that either contribute to
maintain or even reinforce disparities in taxes, services and goods between
sub-national jurisdictions or mitigate and compensate for these disparities.
This book focuses on metropolitan regions, the dominant form of settle-
ment for an increasing majority of the world’s citizens. Their spatial develop-
ment bears many risks of territorial inequality, not only in terms of settlement
conditions and accessibility but also in the form of social segregation. Whether
or not these risks translate into place-related inequities is conditional to
national and regional fiscal policies deliberately oriented to affect local gov-
ernment’s policy choices, and so the supply side of services. Hence, regimes
of place equality can and do make a difference on how income inequality
within and across metropolitan regions crystallize into space. Metropolitan
regions are then the best units of observation of such societal and institu-
tional mechanisms, since it is there where the evidences of urban segregation
can be more clearly observable. This book examines regimes of place equality
in metropolitan regions in 11 countries, and shows that countries as different
as unitary and federal, as well as developed and developing ones, in six cor-
ners of the globe (Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East,
Africa and Asia), did build long-term institutions and policies that affect the
conditions under which decentralized public services are provided.
v
vi Preface

The research presented in this book is the outcome of 15 years’ time

international cooperation in the International Metropolitan Observatory
(IMO) research programme. This book is the third collective publication
by the IMO. It undertakes the first systematic, multi-country investigation
of the sources and consequences of the relationship between policies and
the spatial inequality of public spending in metropolitan areas. Previous
volumes have focused on the spatial, social and institutional structures of
metropolitan regions (Metropolitanization and Political Change, published
in 2005), and examined how these have shaped political participation and
partisan orientations beyond the effects of demography themselves (The
Political Ecology of the Metropolis, published in 2013).
We would like to thank all IMO participants and contributors for their
constant efforts and their patience since the initiation of work on the topic
of this volume at a workshop of the European Consortium for Political
Research (ECPR) Joint Sessions of Workshop in Rennes back in 2006,
at a second Workshop held at the University of Southern California in
2009 and at panels at the regular meetings of the International Political
Science Association, the American Political Science Association and the
ECPR. The support of several organizations was crucial for consecutive
meetings and workshops, and helped strengthening the IMO network: the
ECPR, the International Political Science Association, the National Center
of Competence in Research “Challenges to Democracy in the twenty-first
Century” at the University of Zurich, the São Paulo Research Foundation,
the University of São Paulo, the Center for Metropolitan Studies and at the
University of Southern California, the Provost’s Initiative for Advancing
Scholarship in the Social Sciences and Humanities, the Provost’s
Undergraduate Research Associateship Program, the METRANS Center
for Transportation Research and the Center for International Studies.

Jefferey M. Sellers
Marta Arretche
Daniel Kübler
Eran Razin

 April 2016
Los Angeles, CA, USA
São Paulo, Brazil
Zurich, Switzerland
Jerusalem, Israel
 Contents

1 Metropolitan Inequality and Governance: A Framework

for Global Comparison   1
Jefferey M. Sellers

Part I The Tieboutian Model   25

2 Contested Metropolis: Inequality and the Multilevel

Governance of Metropolitan Regions in the USA  27
Jefferey M. Sellers, Erika R. Petroy, and
Sasha Hondagneu-Messner

3 Metropolitan Governance and Social Inequality in India  57

Annapurna Shaw

Part II The Partial Equalization Model 77

4 Metropolitanization, Urban Governance, and Place

(In)equality in Canadian Metropolitan Areas  79
R. Alan Walks

vii
viii Contents

5 ‘Tamed Tieboutianism’ and Spatial Inequalities in

Swiss Metropolitan Areas 107
Daniel Kübler and Philippe E. Rochat

6 Place Equality Regimes and Municipal Choices in

Metropolitan Spain: Regional Institutions and Local
Political Orientations 125
Clemente J. Navarro, María Jesús Rodríguez-Garcia,
Cristina Mateos, and Lucía Muñoz

7 The Brazilian Place Equality Regime 143

Marta Arretche

8 The Mosaic of Local Governments in Post Apartheid

South Africa: Municipal Asymmetries and Spatial
Inequality 165
Helder Ferreira do Vale and Robert Cameron

9 Interlocal Disparities in Israel’s Metropolitan Areas:

The Impact of Crisis and Recovery in a Neoliberal
Regime 183
Eran Razin

10 Place Equality Regime(s) in French City Regions 201

Deborah Galimberti and Gilles Pinson

Part III The Full Equalization Model 219

11 Socio-Spatial Inequalities in the Czech Metropolitan

Areas: The Case of Prague Metro 221
Tomáš Kostelecký and Jana Vobecká
 Contents  ix

12 The Equal Metropolis? Can Social Policies Counteract

Diversity in Swedish Metropolitan Settings? 237
Anders Lidström

13 Conclusion 253
Jefferey M. Sellers, Marta Arretche, Daniel Kübler, and
Eran Razin

Index 275
 Notes on Contributors

Marta Arretche is Full Professor at the Department of Political Science of the

University of São Paulo, Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies and editor
of the Brazilian Political Science Review. She received her PhD in social sciences at
the State University of Campinas. She was visiting scholar at the MIT and the
European University Institute. She recently published “Preferences Regarding the
Vertical Distribution of Authority in Brazil: On Measurement and Determinants”
(Publius, 2016); “Demos-Constraining or Demos-­Enabling Federalism? Political
Institutions and Policy Change in Brazil” (Journal of Politics in Latin America,
2013) and authored numerous journal articles and book chapters on federalism,
decentralization and public policy analysis.
Robert Cameron is a professor of public administration in the Department of
Political Studies, University of Cape Town. He has published over 80 journal articles
and book chapters on local government, public administration and public service
reform. He is also Senior Fellow at the Global Cities Institute, University of Toronto.
He was a member of the South African Municipal Demarcation Board (1999–2004),
which demarcated local government boundaries for democratic South Africa.
Helder Ferreira do Vale is Associate Professor at Hankuk University’s Graduate
School of International and Area Studies in Seoul, South Korea, where he teaches
courses in international relations and political science. His research interests
include federalism, comparative politics, good governance and economic devel-
opment. His works appeared in several peer-reviewed journals such as Regional &
Federal Studies Journal, LexLocalis, Democratization, Brazilian Political Science
Review and Brazilian Journal of Political Science. In the past, he has worked for
the Spanish Ministry of the Presidency as well as for several international organi-
zations including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB)
and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

xi
xii Notes on Contributors

Deborah Galimberti holds a PhD in political science from Lyon University and
Bicocca University of Milan, and is a member of the research center Triangle—
UMR 5206. Her research interests include the comparative analysis of local and
regional politics in Europe and lie at the intersection of sociology of public action
and comparative political economy. She has authored and co-authored journal arti-
cles and book chapters on metropolitan and regional governance, territorial eco-
nomic development policies and social cohesion, both in France and Italy.
Sasha Hondagneu-Messner is a student majoring in political science at the
University of Southern California.
Tomáš Kostelecký is the Director of the Institute of Sociology of the Czech
Academy of Sciences and a senior researcher in its Department of Local and
Regional Studies. He is professionally interested in the analysis of spatial aspects of
human behaviour, local, regional and comparative politics, and the political conse-
quences of metropolitanization and suburbanization. He is the author of Political
Parties after Communism: Developments in East-Central Europe (Woodrow Wilson
Center Press, 2002) and a number of other books and journal articles.
Daniel Kübler is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for
Democracy Studies at the University of Zurich. He is the co-director of the
International Metropolitan Observatory Project. He has co-­edited Metropolitan
Governance: Capacity, Democracy and the Dynamics of Place (Routledge, 2005), as
well as The Political Ecology of the Metropolis (ECPR Press, 2013), and authored
numerous journal articles and book chapters on metropolitan governance, urban
democracy, public administration and public policy analysis.
Anders Lidström is Professor of Political Science and Head of the Political Science
Department at Umeå University, Sweden. He is the convenor of the ECPR stand-
ing group on local government and politics. Recent publications include the co-
edited The Oxford Handbook of Local and Regional Democracy in Europe (Oxford
University Press, 2011) as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters
on local politics and government, urban and regional politics and comparative
politics.
Cristina Mateos is researcher at the Centre for Urban Political Sociology and
Policies at the Pablo de Olavide University. She has recently finished her doctorate
in political thought, democracy and citizenship. She has published on cultural
scenes, political participation, gender politics and local public policies.
Lucía Muñoz is researcher at the Centre for Urban Political Sociology and
Policies at the Pablo de Olavide University. She is also a member of the Board of
Directors and Coordinator of Development Cooperation projects in the SED
NGO. She is currently studying for a doctorate. Her research is focused on the
effects of the ethnic diversity of a context. She developed investigations in local
governance, gender, civil participation, cultural scenes and immigration.
 Notes on Contributors  xiii

Clemente J. Navarro is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for

Urban Political Sociology and Policies at the Pablo de Olavide University. He is
author of scholarly articles and book chapter related to urban governance, political
participation and local public policies.
Erika R. Petroy is a graduate of the University of Southern California majoring
in environmental studies and minoring in statistics. In 2018, she will complete her
master’s degree at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at
the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Gilles Pinson is a professor of political science at Sciences Po Bordeaux and a
researcher at the Centre Emile Durkheim. His research deals with urban policies and
politics, urban and metropolitan governance and the transformations of the relation-
ships between territorial states and cities. Among his main publications is Gouverner
la ville par projet. Urbanisme et gouvernance des villes européennes (Presses de Sciences
Po, Paris 2009). He is currently editing a book about the neo-­liberalization of urban
policies and governance (Debating the Neoliberal City, Ashgate). He is a member of
the editorial boards of the Revue française de science politique and Métropoles.
Eran Razin is Professor of Geography, the Leon Safdie Chair in Urban Studies,
Director of the Institute of Urban and Regional Studies and Head of Floersheimer
Studies, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He specializes in the study of local
government, urban planning and development and has co-authored/edited several
books and numerous journal articles in these fields. He has served for nearly three
decades as chair of municipal boundary, amalgamation and revenue redistribution
commissions in Israel.
Philippe E. Rochat is a researcher and a PhD candidate in political science at the
Centre for Democracy Studies at the University of Zurich. He has authored and
co-authored journal articles and book chapters on metropolitan governance, local
democracy as well as Swiss politics.
María Jesús Rodríguez-Garcia is Assistant Professor of Sociology and researcher
at the Centre for Urban Political Sociology and Policies at the Pablo de Olavide
University. She has authored and co-authored journal articles and a book chapter on
urban governance, political participation, gender politics and local public policies.
Jefferey M. Sellers is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the
University of Southern California. He is the co-founder and co-director of the
International Metropolitan Observatory Project. He is the author of Governing
From Below: Urban Regions and the Global Economy (Cambridge 2002) and lead
author of a forthcoming volume comparing multilevel democracy and its origins
across the advanced industrial world. Also the author of many articles and book
chapters on urban political economy, environmental policy and local governance,
he has co-edited Metropolitanization and Political Change (Springer VS 2005) and
The Political Ecology of the Metropolis (ECPR Press 2013).
xiv Notes on Contributors

Annapurna Shaw is a professor at the Public Policy and Management Group,

Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. An urban geographer by training, her
research interests are in the areas of urban policy and planning, sustainable cities,
the informal sector and economic development. She has many journal articles and
has also served on the editorial board of Urban Geography (Taylor and Francis)
from 2002 to 2008. Her publications include the following books: The Making of
Navi Mumbai (Orient Longman: 2004), Indian Cities in Transition (edited,
Orient Longman, 2007) and Indian Cities (Oxford Short Introductions, Oxford
University Press, Delhi, 2012).
Jana Vobecká holds a PhD in demography from the University of Burgundy in
Dijon and Charles University in Prague. She is a researcher in social demography
at the KAICIID Dialogue Centre in Vienna and at the Institute of Sociology of the
Czech Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses inter alia on spatial population
dynamics and its effects on social inequalities, local governance and historical
demography. She has published in journals such as Population, Space and Place,
Czech Sociological Review and Central European Journal of Public Policy. Her first
book, Demographic Avant-Garde, Jews in Bohemia between the Enlightenment and
the Shoah, was published in 2013.
R. Alan Walks is Associate Professor of Geography and Planning at the University
of Toronto. He is editor of The Urban Political Economy and Ecology of Automobility:
Driving Cities, Driving Inequality, Driving Politics (Routledge 2015) and co-editor
of The Political Ecology of the Metropolis (ICPR Press 2013). He has authored and
co-authored numerous scholarly journal articles related to urban social inequality
and polarization, neighbourhood-based housing and wealth inequalities, gentrifica-
tion, gated communities, mortgage markets, rising household indebtedness, condo-
minium development, urban economic restructuring, automobility and inequality,
suburbanization and suburbanism, electoral geographies, and the relationship between
place, urban form and ideology.
 List of Figures

Graph 8.1   Per Capita Operating Revenues of South African Municipalities

(Gini coefficient). Source: Own elaboration based on National
Treasury’s data (http://www.treasury.gov.za/publications/
igfr/2008/lg/default.aspx)171
Graph 8.2   Per Capita Expenditure on Basic Services of South African
Municipalities (Gini coefficient). Source: Own elaboration
based on National Treasury’s data (http://www.treasury.
gov.za/publications/igfr/2008/lg/default.aspx)174
Graph 10.1 Income inequality in the ten largest metropolitan areas in
France, Gini coefficients (2001–2008). Source: author’s
elaboration from fiscal revenues per “unités de
consommation” Insee—Données détaillées localisées 205

xv
 List of Tables

Table 1.1   Classification of place equality regimes 10

Table 1.2   Countries covered in this volume: Overview 13
Table 1.3   National institutions and expected classifications of place
equality regimes 17
Table 2.1   Demographic and institutional conditions of metropolitan
governance (2000 census data unless otherwise specified) 31
Table 2.2   Revenue and expenditure averages and Gini coefficients by
category and region (2002 only) 39
Table 2.3   Regressions of revenues and selected tax rates 44
Table 2.4   Regressions of expenditures 46
Table 3.1   Kolkata metropolitan area (KMA) and Bengaluru
metropolitan area (BMA) finances 69
Table 3.2   Percentage distribution of total expenditure 72
Table 3.3   Percentage distribution of total expenditure 73
Table 4.1   Typology of Canadian metropolitan structure by province 84
Table 4.2   Selected indicators, MTV census metropolitan areas* 90
Table 4.3   Means and levels of inequality, municipal revenues and
expenditures per capita, Canada’s MTV regions, 2005/2006 93
Table 4.4   OLS models: Relationship between municipal socio-
demographics and municipal revenue and expenditures
per capita, MTV regions 2005/2006 98
Table 5.1   Demographic and institutional structure of the seven major
Swiss metropolitan areas, 2000 and 2010 110
Table 5.2   Municipal public finance in the three metropolitan areas of
Zurich, Geneva and Lausanne, according to municipal types
(data for 2010) 117

xvii
xviii List of Tables

Table 5.3   Regression of municipal redistributive expenditures

(CHF per capita) in three metropolitan areas 120
Table 6.1   Regression on sociospatial inequalities between metropolitan
areas (2002) 131
Table 6.2   Four metropolitan areas: Sociospatial characteristics and
inequalities (2002) 132
Table 6.3   Regression of municipal revenues per capita: Socioeconomic
conditions, institutional context and the moderation effect
of regional fiscal regimes (2002) 135
Table 6.4   Regression of municipal expenditures per capita:
Socioeconomic conditions, local choices and
intergovernmental support (2002) 138
Table 7.1   Gini coefficients for sociospatial inequality in Brazilian
metropolitan regions, 2010 150
Table 7.2   Gini coefficients for revenue and spending in Brazilian
metropolitan regions, 2010 154
Table 9.1   Gini coefficients of mean monthly earnings of salaried
employees and selected fiscal measures by local authority
and metropolitan region, 2000, 2006 189
Table 9.2   Mean monthly earnings of salaried employees and selected
fiscal measures by local authority type 190
Table 9.3   Israeli local authorities—regression models of factors
explaining selected fiscal measures, 2000–2006 194
Table 10.1 Population, socio-demographics and spatial income
inequalities in four selected French metropolitan areas
(in 2007) 207
Table 10.2 Municipal revenues and expenditures in four selected
French metropolitan areas (for the year 2007) 210
Table 11.1 Income inequality in 1988–2013 (percentage of total in
selected deciles) 223
Table 11.2 Per capita municipal revenues/expenditures by type of
municipalities in Prague metropolitan areas (yearly average
in the period 2004–2006, in CZK) 228
Table 11.3 Variables explaining differences in selected revenues and
expenditures of Prague metro areas municipalities 231
Table 12.1 Social diversity between the municipalities in the
metropolitan regions of Stockholm and Göteborg 243
Table 12.2 Selected municipal revenue, expenditure and performance
indicators in the Stockholm and Göteborg metropolitan
regions 2010 246
 List of Tables  xix

Table 12.3 OLS regression analysis: Explaining variation in educational

performance in the Stockholm and Göteborg metropolitan
areas (N = 55) 249
Table 13.1 Spatial inequalities between municipalities in metro areas
(unweighted Gini coeff) 258
Table 13.2 Revenue redistribution between governmental tiers in
different place equality regimes 261
Table 13.3 Regulation of municipal policies in different place equality
regimes263
 CHAPTER 1

Metropolitan Inequality and Governance:

A Framework for Global Comparison

Jefferey M. Sellers

INTRODUCTION
In the last three decades, social and economic inequality has grown within
societies around the world (Milanovic 2016; Piketty 2014). In developed
countries, value-added production and services have driven aggregate
growth in ways that have enriched the already wealthy, while incomes
among middle-class and poor households have stagnated. In developing
countries, globalizing manufacturing, resource exploitation and domes-
tic economic growth have created rising incomes for portions of society
but left others poor. These shifts have brought increasing urgency to the
efforts to address inequality that have long been central to policymaking
and its politics.
Territorial disparities have always been critical to the shaping of
inequality, to its consequences and to the politics of efforts to mitigate

The author thanks Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot, Toshiya Kitayama, Daniel

Kübler, Eran Razin and Marta Arretche for contributions to the analytical
framework and hypotheses.

J.M. Sellers ( )
Department of Political Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles,
CA, USA

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 1

J.M. Sellers et al. (eds.), Inequality and Governance in the Metropolis,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57378-0_1
2 J.M. SELLERS

it. Spatial disparities within metropolitan regions, although increasingly

unmistakable as a dimension of territorial inequality worldwide, have
remained mostly unexamined as a global component of inequality and its
politics. Sociospatial disparities within metropolitan regions now make up
a dominant component in national patterns of spatial inequality among
developed countries and play a growing role in wider national patterns
throughout the developing world. Taking the metropolitan dimensions
of inequality into account is critical to understanding the full dimensions
of inequality as a social and political problem and to devising policies that
address it.
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, humanity has crossed an
epochal threshold. The majority of the world’s population now lives in
urban regions. Across the developed world, and increasingly in devel-
oping regions such as Latin America, the proportion of the population
living in or around urban agglomerations now approaches two-thirds
or even four-fifths. At least as important as the growth of urbanization
has been the new shape that urban regions have acquired. Sprawling,
diverse metropolitan regions have increasingly replaced the dense city
centers and rural borders of early industrial civilization. The growth of
metropolitan regions has spawned diversification among places, as dif-
ferent types of metropolitan residents and firms have settled in metro-
politan places that divide along lines of income, economic specialization,
ethnicity and political preferences. Our initial analysis of metropoli-
tan geographies and their political implications showed that, in many
metropolitan regions, new spatial concentrations of disadvantage have
emerged (Hoffmann-Martinot and Sellers 2005). Spatial separation has
often reinforced the disadvantages of underprivileged populations. At
the same time, affluent and middle-class residents have gravitated toward
their own metropolitan communities. Separation offers these privileged
groups a wide range of advantages, from higher-quality housing and
neighborhoods to additional, enhanced services or lower taxes. Effects
like these from the global trend toward metropolitanization have poten-
tially decisive implications for the form and consequences of inequality as
well as the efforts that governments and policymakers have undertaken
to address it.
Analytical approaches to territorial politics have generally focused on
variations between regions rather than within them (e.g., Hooghe et al.
2010; Keating and Loughlin 2013). The growing territorial complexity
and interdependence of urbanizing regions has made extended, diversified
 METROPOLITAN INEQUALITY AND GOVERNANCE: A FRAMEWORK... 3

metropolitan areas and their peripheries an increasingly dominant form

of settlement worldwide (World Bank 2009). Disparities among places
within metropolitan areas now supplement interregional territorial diver-
gences as one of the main spatial dimensions of inequality. Metropolitan
regions, sometimes discussed as city regions, represent a distinctive type of
territory from a territorial region, a city or a rural community.
Unlike any of these other areas, a metropolitan regions consists of places
or nodes of human settlement that are both spatially diverse and intercon-
nected. The neighborhoods and localities of a metropolitan region vary
widely in their population density, in their mix of residential, economic
and other activities, in their class composition, and in the ethnic, cultural
and political orientations of their residents and visitors. What makes these
places part of a common metropolitan region is their interconnectedness.
National censuses usually employ indicators like commuting patterns to
delineate which communities belong to a metropolitan area. Metrics like
these serve as a proxy for a densely layered array of social, economic and
functional relationships between metropolitan places. Markets for resi-
dence, for consumption, for product distribution, for infrastructure, for
financial, administrative and educational services, for entertainment, for
employment and for new development weave a common web of relation-
ships within a metropolitan region. Metropolitan localities characteristi-
cally depend on facilities, services, infrastructure, workers or jobs located
in another locality within the same region. This interconnectedness makes
metropolitan regions a distinctive type of territorial context for spatial
inequality and efforts to address it.
Although metropolitan spatial structures are partly a territorial expres-
sion of socioeconomic and other forms of inequality, they also exert effects
of their own on these patterns. Previous work by the authors contrib-
uting to this volume has examined emerging metropolitan social and
spatial structures in detail (Hoffmann-Martinot and Sellers 2005), and
has shown how they have shaped political participation and partisan ori-
entations beyond the effects of demography itself (Sellers et al. 2013).
Governance structures and policies have not only been instrumental in
building these metropolitan structures, but also exercise some of the
most powerful influences on the metropolitan geography of opportunity
for both privileged and disadvantaged groups. The analysis of this volume
will focus on these policies and institutions. Our aim is to explore how
they have reinforced metropolitan spatial inequalities or, under certain cir-
cumstances, reduced them.
4 J.M. SELLERS

THE NORMATIVE BACKGROUND: PLACE EQUALITY VERSUS

LOCAL CHOICE
The empirical analysis of this volume centers on place equality, or territo-
rial equity, across metropolitan regions. Although a distinct dimension
of equality, place equality shares with other forms a complex relationship
to normative concerns about the proper institutional design for local and
metropolitan governance. In the governance of metropolitan inequality,
equity and related values have frequently come into conflict with liberal
and democratic values linked to local choice.
Philosophies of social justice have traditionally focused on persons
rather than places (Cf. Rae and Yates 1981). However, inequalities in the
conditions of places where people live, work, shop, play and attend school
are one of the ways places shape personal choices. Many of these con-
ditions are the direct or indirect consequences of public policies. When
the conditions of schools, hospitals, policing, or the preservation of clear
air and water differs, then the residents of different places face unequal
opportunities to consume social services or natural amenities. Equity
among citizens offers only one normative basis for concern about dis-
parities like these. Minimal local service standards also require a baseline
level of provision that limits inequities. For certain kinds of services and
physical infrastructure, such as roads, drinking water and electric power,
equal conditions across a metropolitan region can also serve ends beyond
fairness, like regional productivity.
Place equality poses distinct dilemmas for different types of advan-
tage and disadvantage. Philosophical accounts of social justice such as by
Rawls and Frankfurt, along with many public policy analysts, stress fair-
ness toward the most disadvantaged as the main concern about equity
(Rawls 1971; Frankfurt 2015). In countries with large socioeconomically
disadvantaged populations, research has often linked the more general
social disadvantages to spatial isolation, or to the institutions and social
processes in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage (Sampson et al.
2002; Musterd and Ostendorf 2009).
As privileged and affluent groups have received growing shares of assets
and income in advanced industrial societies (Piketty 2014), place inequal-
ity at higher levels of socioeconomic status has also emerged as a concern
linked to place. The secession of the successful into privileged territorial
enclaves, from elite suburbs in North America and Europe to residential
communities of IT workers in the high-tech corridors of India, enables the
 METROPOLITAN INEQUALITY AND GOVERNANCE: A FRAMEWORK... 5

most advantaged residents to provide localized goods for themselves to the

exclusion of goods for the remainder of society. Critical studies of these
practices from the standpoint of social justice have mainly focused on the
most dramatic forms, such as the gated communities of many US metro-
politan areas or Latin America, or the most exclusive suburbs. To under-
stand general patterns of inequality among metropolitan localities requires
more systematic attention to what statistical analysis can demonstrate
about—and ultimately, can test—society-wide patterns of spatial inequities
in local public goods and services across entire metropolitan regions.
In analyzing the consequences of intergovernmental fragmentation and
localized goods provision among metropolitan communities for inequality,
it is important to recognize that these patterns can serve other important
ends. As political philosophers since Aristotle have maintained, the interper-
sonal relations and lesser scale of smaller communities can empower local
residents and strengthen the democratic character of local decision-making.
Across most of the developed world, local voting and other forms of politi-
cal participation are consistently higher in smaller communities (Dahl and
Tufte 1973; Goldsmith and Rose 2002). Giving smaller localities auton-
omy to make decisions on their own can add to this democratic potential.
Beyond local political choices, neoliberal theories in the tradition of
Hayek also emphasize the value of market choice among metropolitan
communities (e.g., Parks and Oakerson 1989). Communities with differ-
ent portfolios of services, amenities and taxes offer mobile residents seek-
ing a place to live the liberty to choose their community, and ultimately,
their residential environment. Politics and institutions that further place
equality thus stand in potential conflict with the values of both local politi-
cal choice and market choice.
Fiscal federalist theory has sought to reconcile these concerns about
fairness, local democracy and market choice under an overarching analyti-
cal framework that employs efficiency of aggregate social welfare provi-
sion as the decisive criterion (Boadway and Shah 2009). Much of fiscal
federalist theory focuses on the importance of local political choices to
providing efficient levels of services and taxation. Oates’ decentralization
theorem, for instance, holds that choices to fund local goods should be
made locally except when problems cross local boundaries (Oates 1999).
A pervasive strain of fiscal federalist theory emphasizes interlocal mar-
ket choices as well. In a seminal article, Tiebout (1956) pointed to this
sorting as a mechanism to provide for local public goods like these in a way
that accommodated the preferences of residents. Fiscal federalist analyses
6 J.M. SELLERS

portray this competition as a way to provide public goods more efficiently,

as competition for residents constrains local governments to maximize
the services and amenities provided and minimize local taxation (Ostrom
1972). Weingast’s account of “market preserving federalism” (1995) goes
so far as to advocate decentralization as a foundation of a market economy.
Even the decentralization theorem prescribes more decentralization in a
region where residents clustered in different localities have heterogeneous
preferences, and spillovers among localities are limited.
Although fiscal federalist theory has generally focused on efficiency
rather than distributive issues, the mechanisms of interlocal markets and
multilevel choice that it illuminates generate numerous hypotheses about
how a regional market among places affects territorial inequality. The
interconnected markets for real estate, local services and firm location
across a metropolitan region correspond as closely as any other territorial
setting to the assumptions of the Tiebout model. The class differences
between affluent and poor communities remain exogenous to the Tiebout
model itself. Within the model, however, differences in class or other sorts
of social and economic disadvantage, such as race or immigrant status,
figure as one among many potential sources of the heterogeneity in local
preferences that enables the model to work. Local political choices to raise
taxes and provide services on the one hand, and the choices of mobile resi-
dents and businesses to settle in a community on the other, differ mark-
edly between rich and poor.
In a Tieboutian region, communities with affluent median voters share
clear advantages. Higher median income and assets give them greater
capacities to raise local funds for services or amenities, and therefore the
capacity to offer residents bigger libraries, better schools, more security
and a better natural environment. At the same time, the affluent local citi-
zens of such a community face the full range of choices the model implies.
They can choose which amenities to tax themselves to fund. They can opt
for lower levels of taxation in place of local public services. For instance,
they can provide services and amenities privately on a customized basis
as club goods, through private schools, private security guards, or even
privatized water and sanitation services. Regional markets for residences
and firm location reinforce these advantages. High housing costs—and in
some cases, higher local tax burdens—restrict the possibilities of entry for
less affluent residents.
A community of poor and marginalized residents in a Tieboutian
region confronts a much more limited set of local political choices. On
 METROPOLITAN INEQUALITY AND GOVERNANCE: A FRAMEWORK... 7

the one hand, residents lack the assets or the income to provide the same
array of public goods and services through local taxes. Choices of what the
community can provide as local collective goods remain limited to necessi-
ties, or investment in development that can generate jobs and income for
local residents. Even to provide the same basic services and public goods
as middle-class or affluent communities, poor localities must commit to a
greater tax effort by taxing a larger proportion of local residents’ income
or assets. At the same time, local households facing financial hardship
possess greater needs for certain kinds of public services. New immigrants
need second-language education. Schools in poor communities often
require more remedial services. Poor neighborhoods frequently benefit
the most greater public investment in police services, community facilities
and public parks. In turn, prices in markets for residence will constrain the
choices of lower-income households to the lower-service, higher-taxing
localities they can afford.
Even in the absence of the residential mobility the Tiebout model pre-
supposes, local dynamics within rich and poor communities would aggra-
vate demographic inequality with disparities in public services, amenities
and local fiscal burdens. In metropolitan areas where residential sorting
takes place amid an increasingly unequal distribution of resources, interlo-
cal market dynamics reinforce these disparities. In the USA, critiques of
metropolitan inequalities have pointed to deficits in democratic decision-
making itself (Dreier et al. 2001). When local governments are responsible
for deciding policy at the metropolitan level, fragmentation and sorting
among communities can frame agendas in terms of segmented local
goods confined to individual localities, rather than the interlocal metro-
politan public goods that some versions of fiscal federalist theory would
recommend. In such a setting, socioeconomically stressed suburbs are
especially vulnerable. Lacking the strong tax base of affluent communi-
ties, or the economies of scale of central cities, the municipal police forces
or water utilities that serve these localities confront worse local problems
with fewer fiscal resources. The recent crises growing out of police abuse
in Ferguson, Missouri, and lead in the drinking water of Flint, Michigan,
in the USA each partly reflect stresses of this kind.
Critics of US metropolitan governance arrangements also point to a
further deficit associated with sorting by income and privilege that has
aggravated local crises like these. Marginalized groups who live in places
that are also marginalized face a compound risk of political exclusion.
As critical decisions about the overall distribution of services come to be
8 J.M. SELLERS

made within homogenous, privileged communities formed through sort-

ing, minorities and those without resources can find themselves isolated
by jurisdictional boundaries from an effective role in political delibera-
tion (Frug 2002; Briffault 1996). Divisions like these may even shape the
more general political consciousness of residents in the divided metropo-
lis. Among residents of middle-class and higher-income communities, they
can foster neglect for the needs of disadvantaged populations (Hayward
2003; Sellers 1999).
The worldwide spread of metropolitan regions, and the growth of
inequality within both developed and developing countries, have often
been taken to point to a global future of spatial disparities like these (e.g.,
Davis 2006). This volume, however, points to a much more diverse reality
of metropolitan governance and a more contingent future. Contemporary
metropolitan inequality has been the product of remarkably diverse trajec-
tories in different societies. In Western Europe and India, it is the result
of growing densification of settlement in urban peripheries with centuries-
old traditions of village settlement; in Israel, the product of long-standing
segregation between Jews and Arabs; in Brazil, a partial consequence of
twentieth-century authoritarian development strategies; in South Africa,
a principal legacy of apartheid. Even in the USA, the real estate markets
and processes of local government formation that inspired the concept of
Tiebout sorting are also a consequence of racial discrimination (Hayward
2013) and divergent trajectories of regional development.
The policies and multilevel institutions that contemporary nation-states
have developed to grapple with metropolitan inequality display a similar
diversity. They have shown remarkable dynamism from the last half of the
twentieth century to the present, and in many societies remain a work in
progress. This volume undertakes the first systematic cross-national com-
parison of these policies and institutional arrangements and their conse-
quences for metropolitan inequality. Our aim is to contribute to a broader
and deeper empirical understanding of the underlying dilemmas and of
how they can better be addressed.

PLACE EQUALITY REGIMES: DEFINITION

AND ALTERNATIVES

Since the 1980s, the loosely related set of policy agendas and institutional
arrangements identified with neoliberalism has increasingly dominated
scholarly and popular debates about inequality. Numerous trends widely
 METROPOLITAN INEQUALITY AND GOVERNANCE: A FRAMEWORK... 9

associated with neoliberalism are consistent with a shift from equaliza-

tion toward a Tieboutian model: cutbacks in public services, privatization,
emphasis on markets and interlocal competition and a shift of author-
ity away from public, electorally accountable bodies. A prominent strand
of urban theory has gone so far as to portray state “rescaling” around
neoliberal agendas as a hegemonic impetus behind the numerous shifts
toward new governance arrangements for metropolitan regions (Peck and
Tickell 2002; Brenner 2004). In fact, as this volume will show, policies
and institutions addressed to metropolitan inequality differ widely along
the spectrum between the Tieboutian emphasis on interlocal markets and
local choice, and an egalitarian emphasis on compensation of local disad-
vantage. Recent shifts in these arrangements have reaffirmed broad con-
trasts between national and subnational arrangements for place equality.
Political contestation between forces for and against liberalization contin-
ues to shape and reshape them.
The analysis of this volume focuses on what we term place equality
regimes and their consequences for spatial inequalities in services. These
consist of those policies, governance strategies and institutions that either
contribute to disparities in taxes, spending capacities and public services
across metropolitan regions or mitigate or compensate for those dispari-
ties. Although most of these practices contain elements at the local and
metropolitan levels of government, they share elements of national or
regional (e.g., federal or intermediate level) legislation or administrative
decision-making that—intentionally or not—also have a territorial inci-
dence within metropolitan regions.
A variety of public policies fall under this definition.1 These include
redistributive services, such as education, health and welfare; allocational
services such as cultural and environmental amenities and security; devel-
opmental policies such as transportation and infrastructure; revenue-
raising policies; governmental infrastructure for territorial administration
of policy; and regulatory and other activities with an impact on local social
composition, such as regulation of housing and land use. Some of these
policies have a direct impact on equality in the provision of services. For
others, the effects can be indirect, through incentives and pricing in loca-
tional markets.
Metropolitan place equality regimes can be classified broadly along
a single dimension (Table 1.1). On the one hand, this metric captures
how much local service provision and revenue raising for a community
are determined solely by local choice. On the other hand, it reflects how
10 J.M. SELLERS

Table 1.1 Classification of place equality regimes

Type of place Equalization/choice Effects on poorest Effects on most
equality regime communities affluent communities

1) Tieboutian Variety of local Provision of services Choice of privatized

revenues and constrained by local provision or high
services as well as tax capacity revenues with little tax
local choices drive effort
sorting
2) Partial Limited Low but Limitation of
equalization of equalization, supplemented tax advantages in tax
revenue capacities elements of choice capacity or service capacities
or services mandates
3) Full Assurance of equal Equal fiscal capacity Mandated provision of
equalization of services, taxation or or standardized similar services/
revenues or conditions service provision revenues to less affluent
services regardless of place places
4) Compensatory Redistribution of Disproportionate Limitations on services
services or revenues among funding or services or revenues due to
revenues places constrains to address special redistribution to other
local choices needs places

far the array of policies and institutions of the place equality regime have
compensated for or equalized disadvantages and constrained the advan-
tages of the most privileged places.
At one end of the spectrum lies a pure Tieboutian regime. Residential
choice among different packages of local public goods and taxation substi-
tutes for the goal of relative equality in the public goods and services pro-
vided throughout a region. Affluent households buy into localities with
whatever level and type of services and taxes they choose. Poor households
face more limited choices, restricted by the tax capacity of the places where
they can afford to live. At the other end of the spectrum, a compensatory
regime structures the distribution of revenues to the advantage of poor
communities with the greatest needs. Wealthier communities thus provide
not only for their own services but also for those of needier communities.
Regimes that aim for full or partial equalization of services lie between
these two ends of the spectrum. Both provide for some cross-subsidization
from rich communities to others and from others to poor communities.
Under full equalization, the aim is to provide the same level of service,
regardless of need or ability to pay. Under partial equalization, the regime
partly mitigates sociospatial inequalities but continues to permit some
 METROPOLITAN INEQUALITY AND GOVERNANCE: A FRAMEWORK... 11

amount of disparities in services and taxes among communities. Partial

equalization regimes can encompasses a wide variety of arrangements,
from ones that approach full equalization to ones that incorporate ele-
ments of the Tieboutian model.
A variety of policies and institutions are available to accomplish compen-
sation, equalization or partial equalization. The actual provision of services
is the result of how local political choices within a regime of place equality
affect inequality in what governments provide citizens at the most local scale.
These choices are, in turn, the consequence of how the exercise of munici-
pal taxing and spending capacities interacts with institutional arrangements
of the place equality regime. Local agency depends on how the place equal-
ity regime imposes constraints and provides opportunities for local choices.
Whether institutionalized within metropolitan regions or at higher levels of
the state, place equality regimes share this multilevel dimension.

SOURCES OF PLACE EQUALITY REGIMES

Like other kinds of political regimes, place equality regimes share a deeply
embedded institutionalization and pervasive consequences for gover-
nance. In this sense, a place equality regime possesses attributes similar to
regimes political scientists have identified at the urban level (Stone 1989)
or on an international scale (Ruggie 1982), as well as in national systems
of rule. Exactly how and to what extent the alternative metropolitan ter-
ritorial arrangements we have outlined have been institutionalized remains
little understood. Much of the literature on metropolitan governance has
focused on institutions at the metropolitan scale itself (Savitch and Vogel
2000). Theories of “state rescaling” focus instead on how new institutions
at the regional and local scale reflect strategies of governance within the
wider state (Brenner 2004). Although each of these approaches captures
elements of place equality regimes, both neglect other essential elements.
National welfare states, national institutions of market capitalism and
national traditions of territorial administration and local government have
each embedded aspects of the regimes that govern relationships among
metropolitan places. Metropolitan spatial disparities pose challenges
that policymakers and these institutions have often only recently begun
to address. In this volume, we explore how contemporary metropolitan
place equality regimes reflect both these long-standing systems of institu-
tions and efforts to refashion them to address the metropolitan spatial
dimension.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 —Vast woar,.. snapperden en pieperden de anderen
er door heen.

Er klonk wat dof gemor in ’t donker. Rink de reuzige

lobbes wou wèl. Willem ook en Jan ’t gulst. Maar Dirk
en Piet mokten koppig. Piet wou eerst nog bakkeleien.
—Dirk jeukten de handen. Ze gromden de twee
broers, als buldoggen. Plots in ’n ruk, drong Rink ze bij
elkaar, de stugge haatdragende wraakgierige neven.
En in lol plots aangekitteld door de lachschelle meisjes
sloeg hun haat in dronkemanszwaai over in zang,
werd hun versmoorde jaloerschheid in verteederden
gevoelszwenk, afgunstige vriendschap.—Willem
greep Dirk vast, Piet, Jan, Rink, de reuzige lobbes,
omarmde ’t heele stel, en Henk, ’n takknoest in de
hand, smakte zich brutaal met z’n donk’ren kop
tusschen de meiden, slobberde in ’n ommezientje
[285]ze de vroolijke wangen vol met klink-zoete
zoenen.

Jan Grint die stommetje had gespeeld strompelde op

zij, en met z’n afgeknakten boomtak, slingerde ie vóór
den stoet uit, tamboermajorig manoeuvreerend.

In slinger en sliert eindelijk joolden ze den weg af, op

stillen havenkant áán. De meiden vonden dat de
knapen zich kranig gehouden hadden. In joligend-
mekaar-aangekijk, met de vroolijke oogen vol lach en
rumoerlust, bonsden en hotsten ze den krommigen
keiweg af, schreeuwden ze ’t uit, toen ze plots vóór
zich den rooden schemer, nòg dichter bij den
brandgloed van al ’t gas, toortsgewalm en
kraamlampen zagen opvlammen. In genotssidder
hoorden ze klankenorkaan van al de orgels loeien en
dreunen, tusschen het menschkermend en scheurend
gezang van kermisgangers, die dromden rond den
kook van ’t avondlicht, den roffel van trommels, den
gil-schater van den stoomdraaimolen.

Van den polderweg àf, waar de luidlooze weien in

angstige luistering trilden en de stilte staàrde naar ’t
hellekrochtige kermisgerucht en fakkelgevlam, gierde
de stoet, hossend uit ’t zomerlijke duister, al dichter op
de licht-razernij áán. De meiden joolden, sprongen, de
kerels brulden.

Oooauuw! wat ’n ska-ànde

Loage wroak van En-gè-land!

Van de Haven klonk terug, zwak-vergalmend tot

stilstaand gerucht, naar ’t polderland: Ooaauw.. wat ’n
skande.—Uit alle havenhoeken daverde en galmde ’t
refrein áán; in stikdonker, bij schaduwrood schijnsel
van wat eenzame lantaarns; onder bronsgloed van
walmende toortsen. En van overal doemden òp in ’t
licht, zingende rooie koppen, schal-monden,
aangegloeid ros-oranjig in den hellen brand van
kermiswoel.—

—Binne dur nou puur luchtskommels? gulzigde Griet,

smorend ’r dolle blijheid nou ’t kermisgetier al dichter
op ’r aandruischen kwam, oorscheurend fel.—

Ze voelden zich dronken de meiden, nu al, van

koortsig verlangend [286]genot. Huiverwellust
schroeide ze’t lijf; genot kittelde ze in de kaken en al
dichter naderden ze ’t vulkanisch getoorts van gas en
 flonker-lampen, flambouwen en kleurig-schichtig
elektriek.

Sterker bulderden aan, orgeldreunen en ’n woeste

warrel en stuif van heete stemmenzang, krijsch en
fluitgegil spoog en hoosde ze in d’r begeertronies.

—Dur is dur t’met van alles Geert.… daa’s d’r puur

een prêcht! schreeuwde Willem opgewonden, en lievig
tegen z’n neef,—nie Dirk? dá’ hai jullie d’r vast nooit
sien.… dur is dur.. ’n reusin.… saife-honderd
pondjes.… en ’n ieder mog dur betaste en befoele.…
of dá’ sai dur ècht is.

—Jai weut d’r gain snars van, stampte Jan Grint

ertusschen,—je hep d’r ’n stoomdroaimole.. soo groot
krek aa’s ’n poardespul.… en je hep d’r ’n kie-me-tè-
mès-koop.… of hoe da loeder hiete mag.… je hep d’r
’n poardekirsis.… ’n skouburg en vaif kèfèe-setans.…
en ’n klodder goocheloars.. en woaresaisters.… en
skiettinte.. enne gruufelkoamers.. enne.…

—Hohee! gilde in schellen lach Rink er doorheen,

woar blaife de lekkere maide dan? wa kan main die
spullemikmak hoàmere.… De màide.… de maide.…
daa’s de klus! de fles.. dàas ’t faine werk.. aêrs f’rfail je
je aige stierlik!

—Ooaauuw! waa’t ’n ska-ande..

brulde Dirk midden in, met Willem die ’n maat

achterna strompelde; en hoog lolden de meiden mee.
—Hou d’r je snoater, nie veur je tait.. hakkekruk.. op
da terrain wee’k de sangbeweging te motte.. ikke
konsteteer van dâ ikke allainig de paàs sel merkeere
op dâ terrain.… hee Platneus.. hiere langst.… hiere
langst!.… Bolkie! En nou valle jullie d’r in.…

In bas-diepe brom zette Klaas Koome in.

’t Is de kerremis die je vreugte biet..

Van wa wai d’r nou rais lekker geniet! [287]
Wel sait d’r ’n droo-ooge—soo’n saa ie.. held’
Skaft d’r moar òf.. kost mooi je liefe geld.
Daa’t is d’r ’n la-amstroal van de ofskoàffersbond
’n Blaufe knoop in se jaa’s, gloasje mellik an sain
mond.

In stijgenden heeschen krijsch stond ie voor ’t eind en

heel de stoet sliertte ’t refrein de roodbegloeide lucht
in:

—Men singt, men host, men lacht, men moakt pelsier..

Je loa je waige of drink ’n gloasie bier!
Je soekt ’n maideke, da je spoedig vint!
In sukke doage binne sai goed gesind!
Nou goan je skiete in ’n linnen tint.
En roak ie waà’t, kraig je ’n mooi pirsint.

—Si-iint! galmden ze uit, meiden en kerels, vlak bij ’t

havenend waar ’n kankaneerende stoet uit
flambouwbrons weghoste, hen kruiste bij ’t duister
pakhuisgedrang, en rauw Klaas’ lied overschreeuwde
met ’t helsche refrein

—Oooaauw! waa’t ’n skande..

 Loage wroak van En-ge-land.

Loslatend hun eigen lied galmden de Grints en

Hassels mee met den rauwen stemmenzwenk der o-
wat-’n-skande-krijschers.—Zoo, dansend en wulpsch
schaterend hosten ze áán in duivelsch gebaar onder
eersten ros-gloed van hel gloed-verruischende
flambouwenrij, voor groote tent-façade.—

Besefloos werden ze plots oversmakt door ’n

bulderstroom van hossers. Met moeite werkten ze zich
weer bijéén uit den bruisenden golfstoot van zwarte,
duistere, èven en half-begloeide stoeten.

Vlak voor de luchtschommels, dicht aaneengehaakt in

armenknel, bleven ze eindelijk staan.

Een rij flakker-felle gasflambouwen op koperen

schitterstang gloeiden voor de schommeltent, in hel
van rood-goud licht verzwommen. Er naast, vóór de
kinematograaf boogden drie elektrische lampen, ’t
boomlommer van kastanjelaan ingeheschen,
[288]tusschen twijgen en zwaar geblader, rood-paarse
trilgloed verflakkerend, tooverig-dekoratief
rondlichtend òver den kermiswoel. Al lichtsoorten
vochten en worstelden tegen elkaar in. Aan één kant
vergloeiden de elektriekbollen als paarse manen, een
hel-klare prachtnevel, over boomen en menschkoppen
en tenten; aan anderen kant, vlak er naast, dromden
en gierden tronies, rossig-aangegloeid in beefwalm
van gasflambouwen en petroleumlampetten,
hellemaskers gekerfd en duivelsch geschminkt in ’t
licht en de angst-zware schaduwen; satanische
 storting van gloed op monden en oogen, kaken en
wangbrokken.—

Uit de nauwe steegjes worstelden lòs gistende

proppen bijeengeknelde kerels, meiden, jochies en
wijven. Achter de steegspleten met hun duister gewoel
gloedschijnselde brandroode lucht van Baanwijk, waar
vóórbrok van kermis joelde in helle lichtschatering.
Telkens nieuwe donkre drommen in de kronkelige
duistere gangetjes, stortten zich in den dampenden
avondgloei van vlam-spelige tenten en spullen. Lol,
zang en gebral botsten in rauwe hette onder den
elkaar-kruisenden menschenwoel in de donk’re
steegjes òp; gangetjes en kronkelspleten die er
duisterden als zwarte weggetjes tusschen twee rijken
vulkanisch beflambouwd: Baanwijk en Haven. Aan
ingang van wat kronkelgangetjes bloedde hier en daar
rood en groengeel gevlek, weerschijn van kleurig
tentglas op verweerde muurbrokken rond gekranst.
Maar de meesten donkerden als grotten, waar telkens
kankaneerende massa, uit ’t hellelicht van Baanwijk in
verzwelgde, voortwoelde ’n poos, in de grottennacht,
daar dobberde, terug bonkerde en weer voortgolfde;
gloeierig opdook plots weer in den fellen havenbrand,
den woest oranje-rood en paars-groenen gloed van
flonkerlampen, toortsen en elektriekbollen bij
kinematograaf, waarvoor ’t volk woelde klaar-belicht,
als in ’n plots opengebarsten dag.

Een orgelschallende orgie, demonische klankenroffel

en schetter tegen elkaar inzwirrelend, raasde rond in
hellesfeer op de Haven, kretenzee en brallende
geruchten, opgejaagd in de [289]gloeiheete tjink-tjinks
 van bekkenslag en pauken, lawaaiend tot àchter den
spoordijk waar polderland eenzaamde in eindeloozen
weischemer. En rondom, de melankolieke zeur van
ééndeunige orgelwijs. De kastanjeboomen, diepe laan
van schel-brandend groen, doorblauwd en doorpaarst
van fel-elektriek, grilligde daar als tooneelpark in
dekoratieven brand, met z’n dampig poortperspektief,
waar aan ’t eind, op verren achtergrond van
petroleumfakkelend oranjig roodgoud, een dolle dans
van demonen raasde, uitzinnige wereld van rood-
donk’re en rood-lichtende, kangoeroesch-
kankaneerende wezens; vrouwen en meiden
opschuimend d’r rokken in witte branding en bruising
van ondergoed; mannen en dronken kerels in vetten
lach of strammen ernst, kwijlend, verhit en omgloeid
met de klankrazernij van orgelschetter, paukendreun
en krijschzang.

Vóór de luchtschommels propten de meiden en kerels

zich òp, kanaljeus en doorschroeid van zinnepassie, in
puffende omarmingen, wachtend tot de klingelende
bel, ronde van elken luchtgang afrinkelde, de
roffelende trommel van matroosje vóór ’t orgel, plots
dòfte en de kas-juffer àfluien liet tusschen geknars van
de plots geremde schommels, gepiep van de stangen,
en den rumoerig-beenschuifelenden terugsmak der
stil-staande lijven uit den geweldigen slingergang.

In overrompelenden drom sprongen Dirk, Piet, Willem

en Rink met de meiden naar voren, fel-loerend op
plaats. Dirk had zich woest op Geerts slank lijf
gesmakt. Piet schommelde met schalksch-vurige Trijn,
de aanhalige Trijn, en Willem, woedend dat hij Geert
 niet handig genoeg mee had gesleurd, toch zich
goedhoudend, bonkerde er maar op los met de
snibbige Annie.—

Jan Grint had rondgekoekeloerd of ie Guurt ook zien

kon, al voelde ie vooruit, dat ze wel te trotsch zou zijn
om met den stoet mee te lollen.—

Rink had nog bij tijds ’n schommel gegrepen waarin ie

blonde zenuwachtige Cor droeg. Meer plaats was er
voor hun stoetje niet. Woedend, vol spijt holden de
overblijvenden terug van [290]de trap.—Klaas Koome
raasde wat tegen de luchtschippers die de sloepen
òpschoten, zonder den nijdas te woord te staan. Jan
Grint, Henk Hassel en de anderen dwarrelden
tusschen de aanhossende groepjes, toch niet te vèr
van hun klub, tukkig loerend op alleen staande
meiden, die meegesleurd wilden worden.

Bolk was verschrompeld en bleuïg, met z’n platten

polypneus berossigd en begroend, z’n grillig bevlamde
tronie de hoogte inkijkend, tusschen ’n troep meiden
weggeschuchterd; voelde zich niet meer thuis in ’t
lawaai. Dat hadden de kerels wel begrepen en
daarom ’m half aan zijn lot overgelaten. Op weg naar
de Grints hadden z’m ontmoet. Hij moest mee, of ie
wou of niet.

In ’n hos-storm was ie toen meegesleurd omdat ze

nog wat jool met den ouen rakker wilden hebben.—
Maar onder den wandel naar meiden en kermis wouên
ze’m al weer kwijt. Nou stond ie daar nog voor de
luchtschommel, bang-opkijkend naar de sloepjeszwier
hoog in de lucht,—in zijn tijd nooit bestaan—z’n ouden
 kop omkolkt van geraas, bemokerd van
dreungeluiden. Telkens schrok ie òp, dacht ie dat ’n
sloepje, rakelings langs ’m scherend, tegen z’n
harsens zou aanbonsen. En telkens weer verschool ie
z’n klein krom lijf schuchterder achter ’n woest-
gillenden meidenstoet, bijzij de tent verwoelend, rossig
aangegloeid in flakkering van flambouwenvlammen.

Dirk met Geert, ’t mooie zwartje, slingerde ’t hoogst

boven tien sloepen uit. Rink rukte als ’n bezetene aan
de stangen, dat ie plots in ontzettenden zwier-zwaai
met Cor boven tentdak uitzweefde.—In luchtzuigende
vaart schoten de schommels òp en néér, scheerden
den vloer, zwierden weer òp, plonsden weer neer uit
bang-duizelenden slingergang. En hooger, in woesten
naijver op elkaar, schreeuwend en lallend, zetten de
kerels òp, lijfzwaar zich schurend op de meidlijven bij
elken terugzwaai en smak naar àchter, de tent in.—

—Set d’r op Dirk! set d’r op! barstte Geert uit, in

heeten schater om haar hoog-dolle vaart, met rillige
gloeiingen in ’r lijf van schommelgenot, d’r wellust-
woeste oogen strak op Hassels koeienkop gebrand.
Dirk voelde ’t warme zweetlichaam [291]op zich
aanzwellen bij elken nieuwen ruk en inbuig van ’r
opzet. En rukken nu deed ie als ’n bezetene, dat de
stangen kermden in de scharnieren. ’n Woeste
zweeflol, ’n dolle zwier, niet voelend meer waar ie
was, golfde door Dirk’s handen en beenen; bloed
spoot ’m naar den kop. En Geert genoot mee, in
schommelzwijmel, bang-heerlijk, hoog-wèg in heeten
suizenden duizel, dàn in de lucht, dàn beneden,
scherend den planken vloer, dat al meer gloeiende
 rillingen door ’r heensidderden. Al de meiden in de
bootjes hitsten de kerels òp, hijgend, hooger-zwiepend
de ranke sloepjes, tot plots, midden in den
luchtzwijmel, de bel rinkelde, de rem-matroos
vastgreep en in smakkend gerucht de luchtvaart
gestuit stond in zachten wiegel.

—Wai blaife d’r.. blaife dr’! nog één ronde.… lekkere

metroosie, ’t is d’r soo ellendig lekker! krijschte ’n
lange meid, oranjegeel begloeid in valsch
flambouwlicht, smakkend met tongpunt paljassig d’r
heeten mond uit.

—Nog éénmaal dames, guitigde ’n mooie

matrooshelper, met glurende oogen lachend tegen de
knappe meiden, zoo maar voor ’t uitzoeken. Snel de
breed-bekraagde matroosjes, sprongen weer achter
de bootjes, duwden tegen ’t achterwerk der meiden,
dat ze gierden en raasden van opwinding om de
kriebelige duwen.—

En weer gingen in langzamen opzet, tegen elkaar, in

vaart-zwiep de ranke sloepjes, schoten ze ver buiten
tentfront de lucht in, boven het vloei-flakkerige
stangenlicht, dat als ’n toortsenrij ’t spul in z’n bont-
geel façade-geschitter bevlamde in helle-gloed. En
binnen in, langs de rood gevlagde wanden, bruiste
licht, licht, stond koppenwoeste drom meiden en
kerels, òp en neer, in storm en slinger; brasten de
sloepen door een brand-vlammigen nevel van
schijnsels. Dolle silhouetten schimden langs muren en
tentdoek, en midden in knarsend geruk, giegel en
gekrijsch, bleef dreun-deunen ’t orgel, z’n kanaljeuzen
 strot òpen, waaruit éénzelfde trompettenschetter
verbrulde.—’t Kinder-matroosje aan den ingang,
roffelde voor ’t orgel-gebouw op z’n trommel, roffelde
ròffelde uit, de razende passie der schommelmeiden
en kerels, één dof-rollende dreun van grommingen.
[292]Eindelijk klonk de bel weer, smakte sloepjes-
luchtval terug.—Dirk en Geert strompelden dronken
en waggelend uit, en al de meiden aemechtig lieten
zich de bootjes uittillen door de opgedirkte knevel-
guitige matrozen, die gniepig streelden en knepen, als
felle kereltjes lonkten en tastten.

Dansend bijéén op de estrade, roffel-hakten en

stampten de Grints, Hassels en Rink de tent-trap af.
Henk, Klaas Koome en nog ’n paar makkers stormden
áán, ieder met ’n meid, die telkens wisselden van
vrijers.

Mooie Marie Pijler, prachtslanke blonde furie,

kankaneerde vóór den stoet ’n woesten dans, met één
been de hoogte in kapriolend, haar rokken kniehoog
opgerukt, onder krampigen zwenk van ’r lijf. De
Grintjes en verblufte kerels om haar, op de tent-trap,
klapperstampten en joolden mee van pret.—Maar
Hazewind alleen sprong in sluipende lenigheid vlak
voor de furie, danste ’n vervariëerde horlepijp met
slappe kuiten en slappe polsen, als ’n Engelsche
komiek dof klapperend met z’n zolen op ’t hout. De
meid Pijler draaide langzaam, één been al hooger
uitgerekt om ’m heen, in verwilderde oogen-extase.
Haar blonde haartooi vlamde òp in gouden rossigheid,
volgedrupt van flambouwenrood, en ’r zwijmeltronie, in
wondre omstraling van harenglans, begon plots te
proesten in helsch geschater. ’t Woelde om ’t stoetje,
de luidruchtigste lachende zangers van heel de
luchtschommeltent.

De Grintjes en Hassels, nu mèt Marie Pijler

bijééngegroeid, juichten plots, toen ze ’n endje van de
estrade, in ’t helle elektriek, Guurt Hassel oppikten;
Guurt, die alleen had staan te koekeloeren naar d’r
sekretarieheertje.—Jan Grint pakte ’r vast, lolde er
opgewonden meè. Aan één rij, in slingergang, dwars
door aanstormende en weghotsende stoeten,
kankaneerden ze de Haven àf.—Plots kwam golvende
massa opdeinen uit steegjes, die meesleurde ’t
stoetje, en al de kerels en meiden weer terugdrong en
neerwierp vóór de luchtsloepen, de plek waarvan ze in
zwier en zang, afgehost waren. Dat maakte Dirk en
Rink nijdig, en woester stortten ze zich in den
kermiswoel, sleurden de meiden in armenknel en dolle
vaart mee, werkten en trampelden [293]rond, in slag en
duw, waar ze wezen wilden.—Maar de kerels hadden
geen lol genoeg op straat. ’t Was nog te stil overal. D’r
zat nog geen steigerende furie in. Hazewind schold op
dà’ terain.. van dà’ tie konsteteerde van dà’ d’r gain
duusend minse nog enterd woare.… dà’ de heule
kermisbeweging in ’t honderd liep.…—

De meiden gilden, lalden, dat ze dan maar de kroeg of

de danshuizen moesten bestormen. De neven Hassel,
warm, opgeblazen, hijgend van hitte, en verdoofd van
orgeldreun-razernij konden ’t best vinden, zeiden lievig
tot mâlkaar dat ’t toch beter zóó was dan je met
gladden smoel voorbij te loopen, zonder woord. Ze
zeiden ’t maar, wijl ze voelden dat anders Geert er van
door zou schieten met ’n ander; Geert die beefde voor
ruzie. Dàn zeilde Jan Hassel bij Pijler, dàn Piet bij Cor,
dan Henk bij Annie, in stoerigen wissel van lijven en
zoen-wangen. De blonde furie Marie duivelde en
sprong vooruit, schreeuwde in vlammige dolheid als ’n
bezetene, in hysterische stemme-krijsch kanaljeuze
liedjes uit; holde en klauterde tusschen tenten en
spullen vooròp met den dikken takstronk van alles-
zoenenden Henk, den stoet betamboereerend.
Telkens schakelde hun slingerrij stuk, door alleen-
zwalkende dronken zwervers, die aansliertten en
rondrumoerden met stuipige gebaren, kokhalzend en
verspuwend brallende liedjes. Door de hosrijen
strompelden ze heen, in beestigen slemp weer
tusschen de donkere tentruggen verwaggelend hun
kaduke lijven.—

Tegen twaalf uur, bij losbreking van schouwburg en

Café-chantants van Baanwijk en Bikkerstraat, kwam in
helle-rumoer ’n zang-stoet, galm-rauwend de haven
overhossen, dat heel ’t Hassel-Grint-groepje en
aanhangsels overgolfd verstikte in de machtige
uitbarsting van elkaar-kruisenden menschenhos,
aangolvend, al dreunender en krijsch-zwellender uit
duisteren pakhuis-havenhoek bij polderweg. Drie uur
had die uitgolvende bende opgesloten gezeten, als
muizen in ’n val, en nu plots roerde er ’n stuip van
loswoelend herleven, voortschokkend en in branding
klotsend de heele kermisjool.

Na ’n half uur waren Dirk en Willem, Henk en Rink de

meiden [294]kwijt; vonden elkaar eindelijk weer,
tusschen zwirreling van hossers en zangers. En heel
 den nacht zwierden ze van danskroeg naar
danskroeg, van herberg naar herberg, tot de Grints en
Hassels, stombezopen tegen elkaar aanvielen, lam-
gekankaneerd en lodderig zwaar, elkaar bijna niet
herkennend. De neven begonnen te krauwelen, de
meiden gierden. Marie Pijler drensde om ’n
jongenspak, sleurde zich d’r rokken van d’r lijf.
Eindelijk kwam politie die ’t dronken stelletje, achter
andere troepjes áán, van ’t kermis-terrein verduwde.

Zoo strompelden de meiden en dronken knapen, in

heesch-schreienden zang, de stik-duistere laantjes in,
om Wiereland en Duinkijk.—

[Inhoud]

III.

Ouë Gerrit had stierlijk ’t land, vloekte tegen Guurt en

zijn wijf dat de kerels ongehoord verzopen en
geradbraakt ’t huis inzwalkten. ’t Landwerk lag braak.
Tegen den ochtend waren de jongens weer op de
beenen gescharreld, stond Dirk met dikke oogen en
slappe beef-knieën tusschen de sperzieboonen,
gaaploeiend wat vruchten te zoeken in zoeten
luierrengel. Z’n oogen vol tranen gewaterd, branderig
en katterig door ’t heele lijf, loomde en sleurde ie zich
voort. Telkens op ’t pad geknield, onder ’t hoog boven
z’n hoofd dichtgegroeide ranken-groen van boonen,
zakte hij ronk-zwaar en lenden-lam in, zonder
 weerstand, met al slappere slaapgloeiing en zoete
matheid in de knuisten. Zoo, met z’n wit-blonden kop
scheef tegen de rijzen en latten van z’n boonen,
voelde ie straks te zullen neerzinken in màf, op den
zonnenden gloeigrond.

De zon vlamde doòr ’t groen; ’t zand dampte hette uit.

Eén soezerigheid was over Dirk’s kop geduizeld. De
lucht had hem eindelijk heelemaal te pakken, en eer ie
’t goed wist lag z’n heele korpus, slaap-gebogen en
verzonken, dwars tegen ’t rijzenhout. Hij ronkte en
snoffelde als ’n varken.—’n Laan achter ’m lag ’n
plukker die ook den heelen ochtend al had
tegengeworsteld, [295]maar door de snikhitte overmand
was. Het gebukt zoeken naar jonge schepseltjes had
z’n verzopen en afgetobd lijf heelemaal tol-duizelig
gemaakt en de stille invretende Augustus-brand,
schroeide nu rondom de slaapkoppen op de
blakerende droge akkers.—Ouë Gerrit nuchter en bits,
de kermisweek vervloekend bij elken stap, botste op
den ronkenden Dirk, in ’t boonengroen.—

—Moar god-liefe-Hair! hai je ’t ooit sòo sout gaite..

hoho! Dir-rik! Hai hoo! Dir-rik! schud-schreeuwde ie
woest, bonzend tegen z’n gelen kop.—

Dirk schrok, kéék òp, z’n slaperige tronie onbewust

heffend in brandende zonnesteeken, dat ie plots
bukte, blindgegooid met licht. Z’n makker, door krijsch
van den Ouë ook opgeschrikt, greep lukraak naar de
ranken, angstig-gissend of ie wèl of niet gesnapt was.
—Wat gauw kwam toch die zoete luiheid door z’n
polsen en handen gestroomd. Nou had ie ’n suizend
gevoel in zich, of ie uren òp één stuk van z’n been had
gezeten. En Dirk voelde zich branderig alsof ze’m
stukken van z’n romp hadden afgezaagd.—.…
f’rdomd.. aa’s tie nie oppaste.. gong ie wèèr.. z’n
oogen loken àl en de Ouë, stom in woede, keek maar.

—Wâ is d’r an ’t handje Ouë, lijmerde hij eindelijk

kregel uit, wa nou?

—Moar main kristis! da goan tug te waid.… Hep jai d’r

dan heuldegoar gain koorakter!.. Piet lait d’r half-dood
veur de andaifie huhu! en de moffeboone legge te
wachte.. Main Jesus.. de hellepers sakke d’r glad-
wèg! hoho! ikke mot d’r tug laifere! Enne.. ikke.. mit
main ouë bast.. lap ’t vast nie allainig! eénmoal..
andermoal.. woar mot dâ haine! dâ haine! die
moffeboone stoan d’r puur te rotte op de grond hee?—

—Nou seur d’r soo nie! kom bai de huur t’regt! wat jou
Ouë? Murge is d’r Sondag.. enne moandag doene d’r
wai vast van sellefers niks.… vàst niks! dat weut je …
is d’r kerremis-moandag.… Mô jai d’r ook moar-rais
hain trekke.… omdá niet-en-kan? Och! loat ’t ouë bier
moar werreke!

Brommend en vloekend ging Ouë Gerrit wèg,

radeloos, toch [296]stom van angst. Wel had ie fellen
lust in ’m om te gaan kijken, maar hij was d’r doodelijk
bang voor z’n eigen natuur dáár. Voor vier jaar had ’m
zoo’n tentbaas juist betrapt op ’n klein gapperijtje. Hij
had den kerel ’t vijfdubbel betaald en die had zich toen
stom gehouden. Maar uit schaamte en angst voor dien
vent, had ie in vier jaar tijd nooit meer ’n stap op de
kermis gedaan.—En ’t was zoo glad van de hand
 gegaan dat ie ’r eigenlijk nooit meer om dacht, en ’t
ook nimmer meetelde als ’n snappertje.—Want ’t
jeukte, kriebelde in ’m in de handen. Wat ie daar al
niet zien had? Hij zou zich niet weten te houên.…
Hoho … al die spulle.… die kleure.… die glommige
dingies. Sou die ’t tug-en-doen? Sou die ’t t’met
woage? Dur woa’s vast niemand die ’t wist! Most dus
puur tug ’n toeval weuse.. aàs tie die vint dur nog
antròf. Hoho.. hai waa’s dur soo malgroag.… Soo
malgroag! En ’t waa’s dur de heule eerste kair van s’n
laife daa’t ie op ’n klainighaidje betrapt wier!.… Aa’s
dur nou tùg nies van ’t land t’regt kwam, most hai s’n
aige dan hier allainig mit ’t waif doodkniese! arm,
doodarm waa’s tie tug! S’n aige brokkie grond waa’s
dur tug lang nie meer van sain. Hij poerde moar veur
’n aêr! Enne had ie dan nie s’n spulle? Wa kén d’r sain
de heule mikmak skaile? Most tie d’rof van sain grond,
wel nou! dan d’rof! hoho! F’rduufeld.. hij sou d’r nog
rais fleurig haingoan kenne.… En dan figilaire op de
klaintjes.. Hai sou d’r nou hain! Most d’r moar van
komme waa’t wou! Nou de kerels tùg de boel verloope
lieje … moar dan sou hài Sondag op stap goane …
hoho!.. Sondagòafed.. aa’s ’t drokst waa’s.. ’t dolst
t’met.. daatie nie in de lampies liep!

Brommerig en toch half voldaan dat ie ’t met zich zelf

eens was geworden klomperde hij ’t land àf, voor z’n
leegen rommel staan blijvend. Piet hurkte bij de kolen.
—

—Da koolgoedje gaif je tug moar smerige sintjes Ouë!

mos je moar nie meer sette! ikke sien d’r vast nies in!
 —Hoho.. vier-en vaif en nie genog! d’r valt t’met niks
meer te sette, stotterde Gerrit verlegen, verbaasd Piet
weer zoo frisch en flink te zien poeren, hurkend
doorzwoegen of d’r niks met [297]’m gebeurd was. De
knaap had stiekem z’n heelen kop onder de pomp
geduwd, dat ’t water langs zijn wangen droop, z’n
haren plakten en sluikten langs de slapen. Nou voelde
ie zich weer doorrild van frischheid, galmde ie z’n
kermislied uit, met schorren klank in de zonnende
ruimte rondom.—De Ouë wègklomperend, hoorde nog
lang achter z’n rug Piet’s stem:

—Oooaauw wat ’n Ska-ande,

Loage wroak van En-ge-land.

Kermis woelde door, en gloedkrateriger stond in den

avond ’t stedeke in brand, laaide ruischend z’n ros-
gloeiende flambouwenhel òpen, waarin demonisch-
donkere stoeten uit en achter tentduister en
vlammenlicht inhosten, met woest-duistere sprongen
en gebaren van kannibalen om nachtvuren.

Toch met den Zondag, kwam pas ’t èchte

kermislawaai, van alle plaatsen tegelijk. Op den
middag,—uit de treinen, uit tentwagens, uit reus-
bakkige bolderende Jan-Pleziers, lodderig als
melancholieke tufs-tufs,—drongen de stoeten áán,
van Lemper, Kerkervaart, Duinkijk, Zeekijk, Overschie,
van overal.—

Heel ’t omliggend platteland was leeggeloopen en

opgestoet naar de Wierelandsche kermis. Vee- en
kaasboeren met schom’lige vervette buiken, tuinders,
kweekers en zeelui van Dijkland en al ’t landvolk,
 dromden dooréén. Pracht-omsjaalde bevlagde
boerinnetjes, met d’r kleurgrillige mantels, bontvervige
lijfjes, rokken en vonkend gouden koppen, verdrongen
elkaar, hortend, stoeiend en woelend in zwirreling van
bloote armen, bontkleurige schouders, lachende
tronies, blank en glimmend; omlegerd van
schoremzootjes, saamgeplet met dronken, uitzinnig
krijschende zwierders, en teruggemalen tusschen
aanzwellenden kruisgang van al nieuwe kermisjolers.
—

Zoo duizenden en duizenden, op den middag al,

verwoelden in ’t enge ruim van Haven en Baanwijk.
Kleur-zwirrelende menschenzee golf-deinde en
klotste, bruiste en schuimspatte rondom, tusschen de
pronkspullen en tenten, kramen en draaimolens.—

Tegen den avond pas bulderde áán, ’t groot-geweldige

donk’re [298]rumoer, verklonk ’t stedeke in daverend
hellegerucht, gloeide en schuimflitste de kleurwoel,
donderden de bas-kelen uit hosstoeten, vergilden de
passie-meiden hun hysterischen krijsch-jubel, in
snerpenden scheurend fellen klankenmartel er
doorheen.

De lucht boven Baanwijk-breede boulevard hing laag

en starreloos-duister. In ’t diepe midden, den poortigen
allée-weg, achter de wafelkraam-ruggen, hing ros-
gouden damp, als van ’n uitbrekenden brand, angstig
moordrood in revolutie-nachten, heel den hemel daar
in gloed zengend, bang verrood van vlammen,
verborgen nog lekkend in kraterigen smeul en
windflakker. Hellegloei nevelde boven den boulevard
in de rondom duistere lucht.

Van ’t Stationsplein àf gezien, gloeide daar in

mysterisch toovervuur, de heele Baanwijk als een
verre, diepe laan, waar doorheen zwirrelden en
wemelden donk’re menschenstoeten, telkens èven en
anders weer aangegloeid in fakkelbrand en
toortsenhel, walmend gloedrood, helgeel en oranje
damp, vurig dooreenvloeiend voor tenten en façades.
En tusschen de zwart-ademende lampetten uit, van
stalletjes en kraampjes, doken òp van allen kant,
vergroot en verwilderd, donk’re woelmenschen in
sidderenden nevel; vergroeiend daarin tot titanische
wezens, met geweldszwaai van hun belichte armen,
den allegorischen gloed van hun vurige oranjekoppen,
en de geel-bronzen verflakkering van kermis-
hellesfeer die ze omzoog, omtrilde.—

Plots verdwenen de stoeten tusschen duistere mooten

en inhammen van tentruggen, ’n end dieper den
boulevard òp weer aanrossigend, onder ’t krijsch-wilde
alarm van hun kermiszang; verdreunend in kudde-
trampel, langs en om begloeide boomstammen, die
zelf verwoest stronkigden in hun schors-kervige
wildheid.

Zoo, de stoeten steigerden tusschen de verlichte

gevaarten-stammen; schuifelende troepen, wadend
door een vàl van elektrisch geflakker, blauwpaarsige
siddersfeer, dampend van boom tot boom, tent tot
tent. En daar achter weer, in duisterig diep,
overstroomd plots van avondkleuren, de woeste