Towards a DiverCity

Abstract

The ‘Arrival City’ (Saunders, 2010) describes a multicultural environment in Europe that creates opportunities and challenges at the same time (Wood, 2009). Sure enough, segregated, deprived neighbourhoods are a common outcome of this phenomenon. Often unplanned and uncontrolled social expansion characterised by primarily low-rent neighbourhoods increases population density and simultaneously diminishes living conditions and spatial resources. The social interaction in between the different age and ethnic groups are lower and the ‘fear of the others’ is fairly high within the population. The European city has been facing the trends of Non-Western multiculturalisation for decades now, and the Brussels Capital Region is a noteworthy example with a truly diverse population. The driving motivation behind this project was the author’s fascination for cultural diversity, the concern for social groups afflicted by poverty, and the hypothesis that they might require a different planning point of view. Therefore, to combine theoretical thinking and practical responses, the main research question explores how urban interventions could enhance the position of deprived residents of the Canal Area in central Brussels. This approach was seeking to explore how environmental social and economic sustainability can be enhanced in close inter-relation and enforcement to tackle socio-spatial inequalities.