**More and more Flemings and Brussels residents with a migration background are increasingly moving to urban fringes and border municipalities. This is according to the new “Atlas Superdiversity Flanders”, which charts the evolution of diversity in Flanders since 1990. “The city is becoming unaffordable,” says researcher Dirk Geldof.**
Brussels and Flanders are becoming super-diverse. One in four residents in the Flemish region had a non-Belgian origin in 2020. Thirty years ago, the figure was 6.5 per cent. Flanders also has more than 180 different nationalities of origin. This is according to the Atlas Superdiversity Flanders, a report that maps the evolution, scale and distribution of migration over the last thirty years (1990-2020). The Atlas was prepared by Odisee University College and KU Leuven, commissioned by the Flemish government.
This super-diversity is unevenly distributed though, the researchers have noted. In the first place, migrants move to areas where people of non-Belgian origin have been living for longer, such as the Limburg mining region and the big cities of Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. There is also border migration in regions near the Dutch border.
More recently, the researchers also see new movements. “We see a gradual spread from traditional areas to the outskirts and to more distant cities in the Dender region, such as Ninove and Geraardsbergen and towns like Boom,” says Dirk Geldof. He is one of the researchers and a professor at the Faculty of Design Sciences University of Antwerp.
The Limburg mining region is also notable for how more and more people with a migration background are moving to the surrounding areas.
**”The city is becoming unaffordable”**
This process is most evident in Brussels. People of non-Belgian origin are fleeing the city there. “On the one hand, we see people from other European countries moving to the eastern edge of Brussels,” Geldof explains. “These often have a link to European or other international institutions. On the other hand, we see that people with origins outside Europe are moving to the western edge of Brussels and to the Dender region.”
The latter has a few causes Geldof and his team see. “Some are climbing higher up the social ladder and can afford better housing. For another group, Brussels is becoming too expensive, due to the city’s housing crisis. It becomes unaffordable for them, so they look for cheaper and often worse housing in the Dender region.”
**Less greenery**
The research group also examined the relationship between diversity of a neighbourhood and the type of housing predominantly found there. “We see that the more diverse a neighbourhood is, the smaller and older the housing is. We also see more row houses.”
The survey also shows that neighbourhoods with more diversity have much less green space. “There are fewer private gardens and parks. This is very problematic because there are more families living with children in more diverse neighbourhoods. Precisely they end up in the least green neighbourhoods in our society.”
**Local challenges**
The atlas acknowledges that more newcomers present challenges to local governments. Focus groups show that fear of a “pull effect” in particular comes to the fore in this regard, but the atlas shows that this dynamic of super-diversity is largely self-contained.
The atlas therefore advocates recognising those dynamics and new residents by redistributing space according to new needs and providing space for meeting. “After all, new residents have new spatial and social needs,” says Geldof. “From play, sports and meeting spaces to new types of shops, extra capacity for schools or places of worship. Affordable housing is also crucial.”
That´s not new. It´s a normal evolution.
Here between Brussels and Leuven i can honestly say it is a very nice evolution, seeing all those talented and skilled new neighbours. Also amazing to see how fast the Dutch language is being adopted.
To the west of Brussels (Ninove i presume) I have no clue if it is equally well perceived and how the integration is perceived.
And after failing to integrate or do *an* effort to learn the language, people further away from Brussels will gasp in horror at their tv when they see that politicians who don’t ignore these problems win elections in these cities.
Can’t blame them
Sounds good. Having all people with a migration background focused in the same area is bad idea.
Mijn vrouw is Brusselaar en ik ben buitenlander. Ik verhuisde in 2021 hier voor mijn doctoraat opleiding. We zochten een woning in Brussel en Gent. Het was duidelijk dat de prijs van apartmenthuur zijn te hoog in Brussel voor een klein familie, zoals ons.
Omdat ik in UGent studeer en mijn vrouw voor een of twee dagen (max) naar Brussel werkt, dus verhuisden we naar Gent. Voor een hetzelfde apartment (aantal slaapkammer, de m2, etc), kunnen we voor 200-300 eur besparen.
I hope they fare better than the brusseleir we’ve seen the past decades.
Buy up an old farmhouse and throw money at renovation. A year later leave because there’s nothing to do, a yard is way more work than the 0 work they thought, they complain about shit smell when farmers have to fertilise, they complain about tractors at night when farmers have to harvest, they complain about the bugs, it annoys them the closest supermarket is 15km away, …
They’re “brusseleir who lives at x’s old place” because they won’t stay long enough to remember their name.
This whole problem could be solved if WFH was better supported. Let all those stupid grey buildings in cities lose their value so that they can be changed into apartment buildings. No more 2 buildings needed; one to sleep in and one to work in. No more daily traffic congestion from too many people having to drive to the same place.
Cheaper cities. With clean air. Horeca can stay because people still need to eat. And it would even start to become a good move having sold all our government buildings when you stop renting them.
Given the severe white flight around Brussels I wonder how things will go down, no more status quo for the upper and middle classes
13 comments
**More and more Flemings and Brussels residents with a migration background are increasingly moving to urban fringes and border municipalities. This is according to the new “Atlas Superdiversity Flanders”, which charts the evolution of diversity in Flanders since 1990. “The city is becoming unaffordable,” says researcher Dirk Geldof.**
Brussels and Flanders are becoming super-diverse. One in four residents in the Flemish region had a non-Belgian origin in 2020. Thirty years ago, the figure was 6.5 per cent. Flanders also has more than 180 different nationalities of origin. This is according to the Atlas Superdiversity Flanders, a report that maps the evolution, scale and distribution of migration over the last thirty years (1990-2020). The Atlas was prepared by Odisee University College and KU Leuven, commissioned by the Flemish government.
This super-diversity is unevenly distributed though, the researchers have noted. In the first place, migrants move to areas where people of non-Belgian origin have been living for longer, such as the Limburg mining region and the big cities of Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. There is also border migration in regions near the Dutch border.
More recently, the researchers also see new movements. “We see a gradual spread from traditional areas to the outskirts and to more distant cities in the Dender region, such as Ninove and Geraardsbergen and towns like Boom,” says Dirk Geldof. He is one of the researchers and a professor at the Faculty of Design Sciences University of Antwerp.
The Limburg mining region is also notable for how more and more people with a migration background are moving to the surrounding areas.
**”The city is becoming unaffordable”**
This process is most evident in Brussels. People of non-Belgian origin are fleeing the city there. “On the one hand, we see people from other European countries moving to the eastern edge of Brussels,” Geldof explains. “These often have a link to European or other international institutions. On the other hand, we see that people with origins outside Europe are moving to the western edge of Brussels and to the Dender region.”
The latter has a few causes Geldof and his team see. “Some are climbing higher up the social ladder and can afford better housing. For another group, Brussels is becoming too expensive, due to the city’s housing crisis. It becomes unaffordable for them, so they look for cheaper and often worse housing in the Dender region.”
**Less greenery**
The research group also examined the relationship between diversity of a neighbourhood and the type of housing predominantly found there. “We see that the more diverse a neighbourhood is, the smaller and older the housing is. We also see more row houses.”
The survey also shows that neighbourhoods with more diversity have much less green space. “There are fewer private gardens and parks. This is very problematic because there are more families living with children in more diverse neighbourhoods. Precisely they end up in the least green neighbourhoods in our society.”
**Local challenges**
The atlas acknowledges that more newcomers present challenges to local governments. Focus groups show that fear of a “pull effect” in particular comes to the fore in this regard, but the atlas shows that this dynamic of super-diversity is largely self-contained.
The atlas therefore advocates recognising those dynamics and new residents by redistributing space according to new needs and providing space for meeting. “After all, new residents have new spatial and social needs,” says Geldof. “From play, sports and meeting spaces to new types of shops, extra capacity for schools or places of worship. Affordable housing is also crucial.”
That´s not new. It´s a normal evolution.
Here between Brussels and Leuven i can honestly say it is a very nice evolution, seeing all those talented and skilled new neighbours. Also amazing to see how fast the Dutch language is being adopted.
To the west of Brussels (Ninove i presume) I have no clue if it is equally well perceived and how the integration is perceived.
And after failing to integrate or do *an* effort to learn the language, people further away from Brussels will gasp in horror at their tv when they see that politicians who don’t ignore these problems win elections in these cities.
Can’t blame them
Sounds good. Having all people with a migration background focused in the same area is bad idea.
I wonder why…
The Brussels Studies journal has a great paper on that for anyone interested: https://journals.openedition.org/brussels/6223
Help, Flemings everywhere!
*Ninove has joined the chat*
Mijn vrouw is Brusselaar en ik ben buitenlander. Ik verhuisde in 2021 hier voor mijn doctoraat opleiding. We zochten een woning in Brussel en Gent. Het was duidelijk dat de prijs van apartmenthuur zijn te hoog in Brussel voor een klein familie, zoals ons.
Omdat ik in UGent studeer en mijn vrouw voor een of twee dagen (max) naar Brussel werkt, dus verhuisden we naar Gent. Voor een hetzelfde apartment (aantal slaapkammer, de m2, etc), kunnen we voor 200-300 eur besparen.
I hope they fare better than the brusseleir we’ve seen the past decades.
Buy up an old farmhouse and throw money at renovation. A year later leave because there’s nothing to do, a yard is way more work than the 0 work they thought, they complain about shit smell when farmers have to fertilise, they complain about tractors at night when farmers have to harvest, they complain about the bugs, it annoys them the closest supermarket is 15km away, …
They’re “brusseleir who lives at x’s old place” because they won’t stay long enough to remember their name.
This whole problem could be solved if WFH was better supported. Let all those stupid grey buildings in cities lose their value so that they can be changed into apartment buildings. No more 2 buildings needed; one to sleep in and one to work in. No more daily traffic congestion from too many people having to drive to the same place.
Cheaper cities. With clean air. Horeca can stay because people still need to eat. And it would even start to become a good move having sold all our government buildings when you stop renting them.
Given the severe white flight around Brussels I wonder how things will go down, no more status quo for the upper and middle classes