Home 2.1. There's a bit of Brussels for everyone! 2.2. Each part of Brussels has its own activities and landscapes2.3. Different itineraries, different practices in the city2.4. In the centre and on the periphery: different types of shops2.5. In the centre and on the periphery: shops of different nature2.6. The geohistory of Brussels 2.7. East or West ?2.8. Why is the history of urbanisation so important for understanding present-day Brussels?2.9. A Brussels population in constant evolution2.10. Conclusion

There's a bit of Brussels for everyone!

Activity 6: The geohistory of Brussels

The structuring of Brussels and its customs is the fruit of its history. The differences (morphological, economic, social or environmental) in the Brussels area are essentially the result of the combination of two very old frameworks: on the one hand, the concentric zones, the result of a centre-periphery gradient that we have previously described, and on the other hand, an East-West opposition.

The following animation helps you understand the origins of this structuring and their historical evolution.

Urban growth at the origin of the concentric organisation of Brussels

Author : ULB-IGEAT, B. Wayens.
Sources : Urbis 2.30, PRAS, ICM, IGNB, Fricke & Wolff 2002, Dessouroux 2006.

The East-West opposition is the result of the topography of Brussels, but the topographical opposition was soon transformed into a social distinction. The evolutionary cartography below shows the evolution of the topography in Brussels and its consequences for the installation of socio-economic activities in the city.

Topography at the origin of the social divide between east and west

Sources : IGN, IBGE, Urbis
Cartography of the Royal Belgian Geographical Society

Part of the bourgeois single-family housing abandoned by these social groups was converted at low cost into apartment blocks which, from the middle of the 20th century onwards, would accommodate part of the immigrant worker population. The spatial extension of the working-class districts would tend to increase in the 1960s and 1970s within the first ‘crown’ and along the axis of the valley. They will form what will later become the "poor crescent" extending from the lower part of Saint-Gilles/Sint-Gillis and Forest/Vorst to Saint-Josse-ten-Noode/Sint-Joost-ten-Node, via Cureghem (Anderlecht), the historic centre of Molenbeek, the west of the Pentagon, the east of Laeken and the west of Schaerbeek (in green on the map).

Source: Monitoring des quartiers

Using what you have learned in the previous activity, fill in the following gap text by moving the labels to the right places.

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Modifié le: lundi 1 mars 2021, 10:20