Summary
A 25‐year observation of Turkish restaurants in the heart of the Turkish neighbourhood of Brussels shows considerable changes in the characteristics of the restaurants and in their location. Both dimensions of change are interrelated and are explained on the one hand by strategies of ethnic minority entrepreneurship and on the other by the Hotelling effect.
Socio-Spatial Polarisation and Survival Strategies in two Brussels' Neighbourhoods.
Socio-spatial polarisation in the Brussels urban region can be dealt with at three levels at which different spatial processes are operating. The first level operates to distinguish the city from its periphery and results from the economic growth and suburbanisation of the 1960s. The second level of polarisation occurs within Brussels itself and relates to mechanisms in the housing market and the impact of economic crisis on these. Thirdly, in certain districts of Brussels there is a spiral of degradation, both in environmental and in social terms. They are becoming something like the 'no go areas' of American cities. Two such disadvantaged areas are examined here. Both are close to the city centre, on the old industrial axis, and both have strong concentrations of foreigners. Although apparently similar, the two areas actually offer very different opportunities for community development and social integration, essentially related to the heterogeneity of the environment and the social cohesion of the populations concerned.
The rise of poverty in Western societies can be explained by three socio‐economic processes: the dualisation and polarisation of the labour market, the dismantling of the welfare state, and the increase of new types of households like single parents and singles. These processes are interrelated and they lead towards different mechanisms of social exclusion. This article stresses that not everyone excluded from the labour market, welfare provisions, or social networks has to be regarded as excluded from society. By developing survival strategies in different economic systems (market, reciprocity, associative redistribution) poor households try to escape from social marginalisation. The whole of their survival strategies is analysed in five different settings in and around Brussels. It is argued that these areas offer very different opportunities for social integration and community development, essentially related to the heterogeneity of the environment and the social cohesion of the population concerned.
L'article analyse les processus socio-spatiaux de marginalisation des jeunes à Bruxelles, en partant de la forte relation entre concentration de jeunes issus de l'immigration et degré de pauvreté des quartiers. Ces quartiers concentrent la future génération de la population urbaine et sont au centre des processus de polarisation et d'exclusion sociale. Les premiers résultats d'une étude sur l'exclusion sociale des jeunes et la délinquance à Bruxelles démontrent que la ségrégation au niveau des écoles, indépendamment d'ailleurs de leur propre implantation, est un puissant levier de marginalisation des jeunes issus de ces quartiers.
La géographie des inégalités scolaires à Bruxelles, exprimées par les taux de scolarisation, les navettes scolaires, ainsi que les retards et les abandons scolaires, correspond bien à la structure sociale de l'espace urbain, ce qui représente une facette du rôle de l'espace dans la reproduction sociale. La politique de Zones d'Education Prioritaires récemment mise en place ne tient cependant pas assez compte de l'étendue géographique des problèmes, ni de l'échelle spatiale à laquelle ils se manifestent.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.