De argeloze transformatie naar een diffuse stad: Vlaanderen als nevelstad

Abstract

De argeloze transformatie naar een diffu e stad Het begrip 'nevelstad' behoort tot het soort modieuze nieuwspraak waar planners en stedenbouwers zich van bedienen om condities aan te duiden waarvan zij (nog) niet goed weten hoe ze te plaatsen. In de jaren tachtig van de vorige eeuw was het debat nog sterk toegespitst op het schrikwekkende beeld van een eindeloos uitzwermende periferie rond de grote steden. Geleidelijk groeide het besef dat een deel van de dunne stedelijke ontwikkeling die als een gaswolk tussen de steden in hangt zich niet zonder meer binnen een centrum-periferietegenstelling laat beschrijven. De nevelstad geldt als aanduiding voor een veralgemeende verstedelijking die van uitge• strekte delen van Europa bezit heeft genomen. De verschijning van de nevelstad is ternauwernood stedelijk maar de actoren die meespelen in het ontstaan ervan zijn dat zonder enige twijfel wel.

City Diplomacy Beyond Metrocentricity: The Case of Flanders

“…The combination of (i) the historical presence of a dense network of medieval towns and (ii) well‐pronounced anti‐urban sentiments nurtured from the late 19th century onwards have led to the Flemish urban paradox: depending on one's perspective, it is at once one of world's most urbanized regions and a region lacking major cities and rife with strong anti‐urban undercurrents. For that reason, Flanders has often been described as a nevelstad (‘nebular city’), referring to its spatial pattern being dominated by myriad medium sized and smaller cities alongside diffuse, yet rampant peri‐ and suburbanization (Dehaene & Loopmans 2003). Because of this, categorizing settlements based on their population size can be arbitrary, hence our use of the central city framework.…”

Integrating subsurface management into spatial planning in the Netherlands, Sweden and Flanders

“…Due to the strong role of the municipalities, the typical smallscale landscape of Flanders was urbanised in a scattered way. From the nineteenth century onwards, citizens were also encouraged to build their own house, with the result that only 6% of households live in rental houses and 75% are owneroccupied (Dehaene and Loopmans, 2003). This practice, known as 'Nevelstad' (urban sprawl), is characterised by scattered urban development over a landscape of urbanised roads, with large gardens at the back of each house.…”

Guest editorial: Changing villages; what about people?

“…Such a 'comparative ruralism' approach (Philips and Smith, 2018) provides us with the opportunity to both provincialize and critically improve and elaborate our concepts and theories on changing villages. Although there are clear national specificities in terms of history, culture and lay-out of villages, with important consequences for rural studies and rural policies (Hoggart et al, 1995), such as sprawled urbanization of rural Flanders, and, to a lesser extent, the Netherlands (De Decker, 2011;Dehaene and Loopmans, 2003;Dehaene, 2015;El Makhloufi, 2013), there are also some fundamental similarities with the other cases, like the ongoing pressure of urbanisation, the transformation of rural economies, the increasing integration of rural and urban places, the influx of new groups of villagers and the ageing of rural populations (Shortall and Brown, 2019). This provides us with comparable as well as new challenging perspectives, and allows us to assess the transferability of our earlier insights and theories.…”