This paper addresses the increasing socio-spatial inequalities in European cities and their impact on the possibilities for fostering social cohesion. Many policy programmes tackle spatial unevenness in order to build more cohesive communities. These policies have some impact, but their effect on reducing inequalities at city level is limited. Therefore, an important question is how the overall socio-spatial organisation of European cities affects social cohesion and the capacity to form an urban community able to decide on a common future. First, the complex relation between present-day societal and spatial dynamics is discussed, asserting that it produces segregation. The second part reflects on how segregation is regarded in terms of social cohesion. Many authors stress the social innovative capacities within segregated areas. However, European cities display different socio-spatial structures. How these structures influence negotiation processes between different social groups is poorly treated. The last part of the paper addresses this issue.

In this paper, the settlement patterns of Turks and Moroccans in Brussels will be compared with the patterns of the same groups in Amsterdam. It will be argued that housing market variables explain a lot of the differences between the two cities. The large number of (affordable) social dwellings in Amsterdam forms a significant contrast with the virtual lack of these dwellings in the Brussels area. Historical variables account for these different kinds of housing stock. Cultural variables, differences between and within the categories of Turks and Moroccans, can be seen as an additional explanatory factor for the segregation and concentration patterns of Turks and Moroccans in both cities.

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Anti-urbanism in Flanders: the political and social consequences of a spatial class struggle strategy Les attitudes anti-urbaines en flandre: conséquences politiques et sociales d'une strategie spatiale de lutte deS classes

Urbanisation in China and its rapid increase in recent decades as a result of industrialisation and globalisation are often conceived as a simplified process. Moreover, the speed of the present day process yields the impression that the traces of previous forms of urbanisation are erased for good. Both of these assumptions are challenged in this paper. The built environment resulting from this urbanisation process is to be conceived as a series of layers that reflect different modes of productions and related logics of production of space. Hence, we try to comprehend the spatial arrangement of the city, which can be thought of as a geological metaphor. The social groups that have to be sheltered in urban residential space also radically change in each of these periods. We proceed to analyse these layers and how they combine and interact over time with the concept of socio-spatial configuration, which denotes a precise type of residential environment related to a specific social group in the city. Chinese cities are made up of five types of urbanisation, reflected in five layers and their related socio-spatial configurations: the traditional, protoglobalisation, socialist, market-led and globalisation layers.

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This contribution considers the spatial distribution of foreigners in Brussels. Fifteen nationalities are considered, among which a group of affluent foreigners linked to the international functions of the city (EU Capital and NATO headquarters) and a poor group whose beginnings can be traced to the ‘guestworkers’ immigration in the late sixties and early seventies. Firstly, the population structure of Brussels and the position of its foreigners are outlined in a historical perspective. Then, the housing market structure and its spatial distribution are explained. Both elements are crucial to the understanding of the contrasting residential distribution of the affluent foreigners and the guestworkers. Finally, the changes in the composition of the foreign communities between 1981 and 1991 are examined and related to processes of urban restructuring. They express the passage from a Fordist to a post‐Fordist city whereby spatial patterns merely change, but deepening contrasts in the social structure appear.