IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/eurpls/v24y2016i5p974-995.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Flemish Diamond or ABC-Axis? The spatial structure of the Belgian metropolitan area

Author

Listed:
  • Michiel van Meeteren
  • Kobe Boussauw
  • Ben Derudder
  • Frank Witlox

Abstract

This contribution traces the evolution of the Belgian urban system by adopting a historical taxonomy of agglomeration-economy regimes, and poses the question whether a new centralizing agglomeration-economy regime based on renewed ‘metropolization’ can be observed. Belgium has federalized into three regions during the last decades and different spatial perspectives emerged about how the central metropolitan area crosscuts the regional borders. After placing Belgian metropolization in its historical context, we engage with its contemporary geography. We inquire if the metropolitan area of Belgium is more akin to the ‘Flemish Diamond’, with capital city Brussels as the southernmost node, or whether a spatial pattern reminiscent of the historical ‘Antwerp-Brussels-Charleroi (ABC)-Axis’ is a more adequate description. To answer these questions, we examine the spatial integration of the Belgian labour market utilizing the connectivity field method and a 2010 nationwide travel-to-work data set. Based on this analysis, inferences are drawn about labour market interdependencies between various parts of the urban system. The results indicate that contemporary metropolization in Belgium can be topographically expressed as an area that is more trans-regional than the Flemish Diamond yet more polycentric than an extension of Brussels, thus pointing to renewed economic centralization tendencies at the supra-regional level.

Suggested Citation

  • Michiel van Meeteren & Kobe Boussauw & Ben Derudder & Frank Witlox, 2016. "Flemish Diamond or ABC-Axis? The spatial structure of the Belgian metropolitan area," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(5), pages 974-995, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:24:y:2016:i:5:p:974-995
    DOI: 10.1080/09654313.2016.1139058
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09654313.2016.1139058
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09654313.2016.1139058?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen J. Scott, 2012. "A World in Emergence," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15038.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ann Verhetsel & Joris Beckers & Michiel Meyere, 2018. "Assessing Daily Urban Systems: A Heterogeneous Commuting Network Approach," Networks and Spatial Economics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 633-656, September.
    2. Francesca Froy, 2023. "Learning from architectural theory about how cities work as complex and evolving spatial systems," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 16(3), pages 495-510.
    3. Anna Growe & Kati Volgmann, 2022. "Metropolisation through Regionalisation? Spatial Scope and Anchor Points of Metropolitan Functions in German Urban Regions," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 113(5), pages 502-522, December.
    4. Laura Deruytter & Ben Derudder, 2019. "Keeping financialisation under the radar: Brussels Airport, Macquarie Bank and the Belgian politics of privatised infrastructure," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(7), pages 1347-1367, May.
    5. Beckers, Joris & Cárdenas, Ivan & Verhetsel, Ann, 2018. "Identifying the geography of online shopping adoption in Belgium," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 33-41.
    6. Saadi, Ismaïl & Boussauw, Kobe & Teller, Jacques & Cools, Mario, 2016. "Trends in regional jobs-housing proximity based on the minimum commute: The case of Belgium," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 171-183.
    7. Fransen, Koos & Boussauw, Kobe & Deruyter, Greta & De Maeyer, Philippe, 2019. "The relationship between transport disadvantage and employability: Predicting long-term unemployment based on job seekers’ access to suitable job openings in Flanders, Belgium," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 268-279.
    8. David Bassens & Laura Gutierrez & Reijer Hendrikse & Deborah Lambert & Maëlys Waiengnier, 2021. "Unpacking the advanced producer services complex in world cities: Charting professional networks, localisation economies and markets," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(6), pages 1286-1302, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xu Zhang, 2018. "Multiple creators of knowledge-intensive service networks: A case study of the Pearl River Delta city-region," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(9), pages 2000-2019, July.
    2. Audrey C Jamal, 2018. "Coworking spaces in mid-sized cities: A partner in downtown economic development," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(4), pages 773-788, June.
    3. Moritz Breul & Javier Revilla Diez, 2021. "“One thing leads to another”, but where? – Gateway cities and the geography of production linkages," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(1), pages 29-47, March.
    4. John Harrison & Anna Growe, 2014. "When Regions Collide: In What Sense a New ‘Regional Problem’?," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(10), pages 2332-2352, October.
    5. Emma Folmer & Robert C Kloosterman, 2017. "Emerging intra-urban geographies of the cognitive-cultural economy: Evidence from residential neighbourhoods in Dutch cities," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(4), pages 801-818, April.
    6. Xu Zhang & Yajuan Li, 2019. "Serving the culture: Spatial interactions between cultural industries and advanced producer services in mainland China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(2), pages 374-392, March.
    7. Michael Storper & Allen J Scott, 2016. "Current debates in urban theory: A critical assessment," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(6), pages 1114-1136, May.
    8. Cheng-Yi Lin, 2017. "The reputation-building process and spatial strategies of creative industries: A case study of product design firms in Taipei," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 186-204, January.
    9. Jana Maria Kleibert, 2015. "Islands of globalisation: Offshore Services and the Changing Spatial Divisions of Labour," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(4), pages 884-902, April.
    10. Nicholas A Phelps & Cristian Silva, 2018. "Mind the gaps! A research agenda for urban interstices," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(6), pages 1203-1222, May.
    11. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 2015. "Regional development in the global economy: A dynamic perspective of strategic coupling in global production networks," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(1), pages 1-23, March.
    12. Augusto Cusinato, 2016. "A comment on Scott and Storper's ‘The nature of cities: The scope and limits of urban theory’," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 95(4), pages 895-901, November.
    13. Marieke Krijnen & David Bassens & Michiel van Meeteren, 2017. "Manning circuits of value: Lebanese professionals and expatriate world-city formation in Beirut," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2878-2896, December.
    14. John Harrison & Jesse Heley, 2015. "Governing beyond the metropolis: Placing the rural in city-region development," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 52(6), pages 1113-1133, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:eurpls:v:24:y:2016:i:5:p:974-995. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CEPS20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.