<figure><img src="image_37.png" /></figure>

[fig.1] Border lines, geographical borders, human borders. From left to right and top to bottom: border of the Kaliningrad enclave seen from Lithuanian territory; former Russian prisoners on the run in Transnistrian territory; view of the Franco-Belgian border with a solid area formed by the piping of the Espierre river, which was used to mark the original border; border between Croatia and Serbia under constant negotiation due to the fluctuating Danube, which determines the course of the border. Source: elaborated by the author

### *A change of perspective*

In 2021, my thinking took a turn when I read an article in *Le Monde* entitled "Between France and Belgium, the Roma trapped in Absurdistan".<fnref n="1" /> This article exposes a reality that is little known to the general public: people of "Roma culture" living in France regularly cross the Belgian border to renew their right to remain on French soil. In particular, the article denounces the abusive practice of OQTF "Obligation de Quitter le Territoire Français" issued by the PAF "Police Aux Frontières" and their impact on national migration statistics. This phenomenon highlights the continuing influence of our European borders, particularly on a marginalised population.

The article reveals that, according to data published by the French Minister of the Interior in January 2021, fourteen deportations were carried out in 2020 on the orders of the Prefect of the North, targeting 127 Roma living in the Lille metropolitan area. For the vast majority of these families, these deportations are a real nightmare, as leaving France means leaving everything behind: their home and their job for the period set out in the OQTF. The reason given is that "their precarious situation is a factor in disturbing public order".

In addition, the prefecture continues to issue OQTF, despite the fact that for more than a decade, the strategy of travelling to Belgium to renew their access to French territory has been widely practised by the families concerned. Thus calling into question the effectiveness sought by the introduction of this measure.

In 2009, according to the French Immigration Ministry, the average cost of an expulsion was €20,970 per person. Thus, the economic argument of a population that is "less expensive" to expel (intra-European expulsion), or the simple desire to influence migration statistics could explain the reasons for an administrative practice whose effectiveness remains to be proven.

<footnote n="1">¹ MONIEZ, Laurie, Entre la France et la Belgique, les Roms piégés en Absurdistan, Janvier 2021, Le Monde</footnote>
## Meeting with the Radu family

In 2021, I visited one of Lille's four shantytowns located next to the “Sauvegarde du Nor” reception area on avenue Léon Joubaux. This shanty town was built around a basketball court and a football pitch on a plot of land belonging to Lille City Council. This public space provided an interstice that I was able to use to establish relationships with the residents.

Two or three times a week, I visited the shanty town, sometimes on my own or with friends, to do activities with the children: painting workshops, puppet shows, football, basketball, etc. [fig.2]. It was through their contact that I became close to several families, in particular the Radu family.

Constantin Radu told me all about his life. He quickly caught my attention. Constantin is 30 years old and lives in a small shack with his wife Olga and three children, Carol, Ionut and Sarah. He is part of a larger family group whose neighbouring shacks form a small street in the shanty town. This household is made up mainly of his parents, his brothers and sisters and their children, around twenty people in all.

For twelve years now, the family has been living in no-man's-land, in camps on the outskirts of towns, constantly moving back and forth, in constant instability and uncertainty. Shanty towns, squats, social housing, administrative detention centres, on the fringes of cities, along ring roads, straddling the border between France and Romania or imprisoned on the borders of the State, each place and each situation reveals hopes and shortcomings. At the same time, these places with their different characteristics are all part of one and the same place, the place of exile. The idea of making a film with Constantin emerged, I spoke to him about it and he agreed [fig.3].

<figure><img src="image_38.png" /><figcaption>[fig.2] Activity with children in the shanty town. Source: elaborated by the author</figcaption></figure>

## Borders and migration

### Borders and migration

Since 1991, more than 30,000 kilometres of new international and land borders have been created (Foucher, 2015). The creation of sea and air borders since the 1980s has continued this trend.

As a result, the entire world is divided and criss-crossed by markings and delimitations. However, as the geographer Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary points out, we are witnessing the end of a political model that we thought was immutable, that of the nation state, and therefore a paradigm shift in the way we interpret borders (Amilhat Szary, 2015).

Indeed, the 21st century, with its changes linked to globalisation and free trade, marks a profound change in the status of our state borders. In an economic rationale, free movement projects are accompanied by
exclusion strategies to deal with a dynamic geography linked to migratory pressures. States are faced with a contradiction between the increase in mobility and the need to protect their borders from this mobility. Borders now have to perform a dual function of filtering "legitimate traffic" from "undesirables" (Amilhat Szary, 2015). The analysis depicts a complex reality linked to the economic emergence of a globalised world, and a tendency for borders to multiply.

Moreover, the increase in international migrants over the last fifty years is undeniable. In 2020, an estimated 281 million people were living in a country other than their country of birth (around 3.6% of the world's population), 128 million more than in 1990 and more than three times as many as in 1970.<fnref n="2" />

Of these 281 million international migrants, 87 million arrived in Europe, representing 30% of the world's total migrant population. Between 2000 and 2020, there will be an increase of 30 million international migrants in Europe.<fnref n="3" /> Whether motivated by economic, geographical or demographic factors, the migratory phenomenon follows distinct trajectories, forming migration "corridors" that are difficult to define given the diversity of the reasons for moving.

## *The individualisation of bodies in the face of borders*

The end of the "nation-state" paradigm, i.e. one based on "the territorially linear translation of the balance of power between states", has led to an individualisation of relations with borders according to the conditions of citizenship: "each individual is in a position to experience border(s) differently" (Amilhat Szary, 2015).

For example, citizens of rich countries cross more easily than those to whom they try to restrict access to their territory. This "individualisation" of the relationship with the border therefore takes the form of a social filter giving different access to the world: "Depending on the type of passport you hold, you may have access to between 28 and 173 countries, giving you a world of highly variable geometry" (Ibid).

Chris Perkins and Chris Rumford therefore propose to develop a 'vernacular' analysis of borders (Perkins, Rumford, 2013). The analysis of border systems, often dominated by 'macro' logics, struggles to capture the subjectivity of a world of variable geometry. Yet the day-to-day activities of ordinary people contribute to the process of constructing borders. The meaning of borders differs according to the logic of temporality and according to the individuals who confront them. Thinking of borders in terms of the individual would therefore be a better way of identifying them in their entirety. The individual, through his or her trajectories, is confronted with different border situations.

<footnote n="2">² All the data mentioned can be found on the website of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), 2021. Migration and migrants in the world. In: State of World Migration 2022 (M. McAuliffe and A. Triandafyllidou, eds.). IOM, Geneva.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Ibid</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_39.png" /><figcaption>[fig.3] Shooting with the radu family. Source: elaborated by the author</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /></figure>

# Mobile borders, Borderlands and territories of exile

## A "vernacular" analysis of borders

The logic of "borders-individuals" is therefore based on a dual system of relationships. In the first, changes in our contemporary borders would influence individuals by confronting them with 'various border tests' according to a decisive social filter. In the second, the individual, through his or her social-spatial behaviour, also produces the border.

While migratory flows are generally considered on a 'macro' scale, with the predominant question being to reveal the main 'international migratory corridors', the issue here is quite different. By following the journey of a Roma family in the Lille metropolitan area, we will seek to understand and represent all the places impacted by these 'border logics', as well as what this means for the Radu family in terms of the way they live and the time they spend there.

We will therefore attempt to describe and name these places, and understand how they are part of a wider dynamic. The challenge is therefore to answer the following question: In what way does the life of a Roma family reveal the consequences of our contemporary borders, while at the same time giving shape to specific spaces?

This quest for definition leads to a twofold methodological reflection. The first, based on the work of two authors, will examine the ways in which the changing status of our state borders has a social and spatial impact on our territories. The second, based on a field approach, will seek to define the places that govern the Radu family's journey into exile and examine the dynamics that link them together.

## From the "line" to the "point cloud"

Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary, born in 1970, is a French geographer specialising in political geography and borders. She is best known for popularising the concept of the "mobile border". In her view, borders must now have a dual function of filtering "legitimate traffic" from "undesirables" (Amilhat Szary, 2011). In this way, the functions assigned to state borders are losing their linear aspect by adopting a more
mobile nature. Robert Audebert has been describing the phenomenon of "outsourcing" since the early
1990s. The control of flows is taking on increasingly diverse forms and is being exercised well beyond the
boundaries of the districts where it was traditionally active (Parizot, 2013).

Anne-Laure Amilhat Szary considers that "the border has evolved towards other models, comparable to a cloud of points forming a network". The relationship with borders is becoming more individualised and more like a social filter. But what most disturbs this state of affairs today is that "the border is no longer located solely at the border" (Amilhat Szary, 2011). Transport facilities such as stations and airports also contribute to these differentiated controls. This is also the case when the PAF (Border Police) intervenes in the various shantytowns of the MEL (Lille European Metropolis) to issue OQTFs to the people concerned. Thus, the most striking process in the recent evolution of our borders results from the deployment of the functions traditionally attributed to them: these are now exercised both far upstream and far downstream of the border itself.

Based on these analyses, Anne-Laure Amilhat-Szary and Frédéric Giraut define the notion of the "mobile border" as follows: "Border functions tend to go beyond the established limits of areas of national sovereignty, to be pushed back, projected, multiplied or diffused in space" (Amilhat Szary, Giraut, 2011).

In fact, while the border may originally have been perceived as a front line evolving in step with military
conquests, today it is more akin to an object whose qualities, attributes and consequences for life courses
are diffused in space and time. As movement is permanent, the notion of a state border seems less
obvious. These "two-edged limits" that are borders are cracking and diluting in space (Retaillé, 2012).

This diffusion of border functions, means that we need to rethink our approach, both in terms of analysis and in the representation of these polymorphous lines. Thus, if we consider that borders have lost all stability, it is now the lability of their arrangements that we need to analyse in order to better understand and represent them (Amilhat Szary, 2011). In fact, if we are talking about the diffusion of the border as 'a cloud of points', then how can we name and represent the places directly or indirectly affected by this geographical concept? What systems of influence and relationships do they have with each other, and how should they be represented?

From the "point cloud" to the "borderlands

A dual form of spatial marginalisation

The functions assigned to border areas tend to spread across the territory well beyond our administrative
boundaries. The work of anthropologist Michel Agier reveals how "the difficulties associated with
crossing borders have an effect that spreads beyond the border line itself". In this way, the concept of the
border as a "cloud of points" resides in a dual system of relations, both through the border itself and
through the individual, which also produces diffusion effects.

In his article "Parcours dans un paysage flottant des frontières" (Journey through a floating landscape of borders), he refers to difficulties as "border situations" and describes them as tests of more or less materialised boundaries. These trials reveal the thickness and spatial and temporal fragmentation of the borderline itself. They are characterised by a 'putting outside', the experience of a double exclusion from locality.

Firstly, in a "distant outside", i.e. outside the administrative borders of their state of origin, lost through
displacement. In the case of the Radu family, despite European citizenship that is supposed to guarantee
freedom of movement within the EU, this "far outside" constitutes a "border test". The "Obligation de
Quitter le Territoire Français" is indicative of their status as second-class citizens. The idea of a population
trapped in the "labyrinth of the foreigner" (Schütz, 2010) is particularly apparent when the individual
settles in a border situation. They come up against language barriers and cultural differences and try to
integrate while at the same time dealing with their "new and marginal sociality" (Agier, 2014).

Secondly, these same individuals face a 'near outside', i.e. outside the urban order. Most migrants find
refuge on the outskirts of our cities, in shanty towns. This spatial marginality is reflected in problems of
mobility and access to healthcare, education, water and electricity. Caught between urban boundaries and
administrative borders, migrants face a double phenomenon of spatial marginalisation.

From the "point cloud" to the "borderlands

Our guiding principle will be to identify all the places affected by these borderland situations (shanty
towns, squats, linked to the outside of the urban order and the distant outside). According to Michel
Agier, this approach is well summed up by the term "borderland" (Agier, 2014). So, the trials of borders
are said to produce particular landscapes. If we take the case of shantytowns, these places appear as
accidents in the context provided by urban planning. They act as a boundary between an interior that does not belong to the city and an exterior "the city" that keeps them at a distance:

"The border situation gradually becomes a landscape that settles into the city over time and space, at its very edge, at the cost of an unstable compromise between people on the move on the one hand, and the urban society and urban power that these people encounter on the move on the other. This political instability encourages 'floating' and uncertainty about the limits and future of these places of the limit" (Agier, 2014).

Shanty towns are part of this Borderland, that is to say, they are places that form part of this image of borders as "cloud of points". What's more, they have the distinctive feature of confronting two forms of margin, state and urban, giving these places an extraterritorial character.

### Refuge, asylum, prison

The Borderlands take different forms, particularly in the migratory process. In his book "Du refuge naît le ghetto" (2013), Michel Agier identifies three key places: refuge, asylum and prison. These are places of relegation that punctuate the migratory journey, places that he describes as heterotopic according to the concept devised by Michel Foucault. Three heterotopic figures whose common features are extraterritoriality, exceptionality and exclusion. They share a separation from the common world and represent spaces of distance and limit. The relationship between exception and exclusion varies according to the context.

"Refuge" is "the shelter we create for ourselves in the absence of hospitality". These are "places out of all places" that are created in a hostile outside world, on the edge of the order of things. These are camps for foreigners, squats, shanty towns and urban ghettos. These demarcated "pieces of space" are the consequence of a marked desire to set people apart and separate them: "The state of abandonment of these spaces confirms and redoubles the absence of territorial citizenship of those who occupy them; neither the State of which they are nationals nor the State of their exile guarantees them the localised exercise of citizenship in the borderline places where they find themselves" (Agier, 2013).

"Asylum" is a place of transition and in-between, halfway between hospitality and seclusion, the right to life and banishment, humanitarianism and security. It brings together different types of structures such as CADAs (reception centres for asylum seekers), integration villages, reception areas, accommodation centres, etc. This system is designed to respond to the problem of refuge by offering a place to live, to receive and to provide access to the common world. However, it remains at the frontier of the social and national order. For Michel Agier, this is also reflected in: "the implementation of an extraterritorial fiction - a fiction consisting of recreating an out-of-place within the common world, within cities themselves" (Agier, 2013). These places find themselves in two topographies in conflict: that of the foreigner as undesirable and that of hospitality: "in their internal life, the material and social forms falling under this ambivalent principle of asylum are places of tension, conflict or unease, because the actors (housed/closed and interveners) are maintained, in a suspended temporality, in the uncertainty of the common rules of their existence" (Agier, 2013).

"Prison" means exclusion from the social structure, banishment or punishment. It is where the "undesirables" are locked up. It includes detention centres, administrative holding centres, prison holding facilities and waiting areas for people awaiting trial (ZAPs). It corresponds to one of the first-order heterotopias described by Foucault, i.e. the place where the social order is set aside.

The distinctive feature of these three heterotopic figures is their complementarity. All three mark a separation from the world. What's more, they are linked by an ambivalence: imprisonment is found in the asylum, and the asylum offers part of the refuge.

### Multilocality and the place of exile

According to Marc Augé, population movements create 'places', with which trajectories, paths and routes form subsidiary relationships (Augé, 1992). These movements from one place to another affirm complementary links in a reticular manner, or even splinter. Moreover, according to Michel Agier, the succession of these places forms a single place, the place of exile.

This whole takes on a personal dimension in the narrative, hence the importance of accounting for this succession of places. When we are constantly moving from one place to another, our history is defined by the sum of these places, which gives rise to the condition of exile [fig.4]. The journey becomes the place, and memory becomes a multilocality that constitutes the subject's narrative (Agier, 2013).
In this way, the 'point cloud' effect of borders seems to be part of a dual system of relations, with border functions on the one hand and the individual facing borders on the other. Both are producers of places: the Borderlands. All these places form a single place for migrants, the "place of exile". From a 'vernacular' approach, we need to see whether all these concepts can describe the realities experienced by the Radu family in the Lille metropolis.

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /><figcaption>[fig.4] The ten sites of the Radu family's wanderings. Source: elaborated by the author from google maps</figcaption></figure>
# Living in exile: between occupation and movement

## Filming and travelling through the territory of exile

The following observations were made as part of a two-year field study from May 2021 to May 2023. Our research approach through film led us to revisit each of the places where the family stayed. Since 2011, these places, which include five shanty towns, a squat, an integration village and an administrative detention centre, seem to fit perfectly into the three heterotopic figures described by Michel Agier.
Of these places, only three could be analysed as occupied: two shanty towns and one integration village.
The first shanty town was located on avenue Léon Jouaux in Lille. We were able to observe it from May 2021 until January 2023, when the prefecture began eviction proceedings, bringing the observation period to an end.

Following the eviction, the Radu family was dispersed. On the same day, the Prefecture proposed alternative accommodation. Part of the Radu family was sent to an integration village in Loos, another to Hellemes, while the third did not receive any offers of rehousing and finds itself without accommodation.
This last group, made up of Constantin's brother Sorin, his wife and their children, led to the departure of the first group to Romania. Out of solidarity, the first group could not leave the other without a solution.
So, they decided to return to Romania before moving back to a new shanty town a few weeks later. So, since January 2023, the observations have been taking place in two different locations: a shanty town in Lomme where most of the family members live, and an integration village in Hellemes where Constantin, Olga and their children live.

These successive changes enabled us to observe various key stages in the occupation of the shelters. Here, we seek to reveal the underlying processes. Finally, we'll see whether other places can be found in the family's wandering path, beyond the three figures mentioned by Michel Agier.

## Processual logic of the place of refuge

Shelters are all of varying quality and are destined to disappear according to the following logic: establishment, occupation, disruptive element (accident, eviction), departure and neutralisation [fig.6].
The first stage consists of establishing oneself in a place, which is a moment of great vulnerability. It can take weeks or even months to set up shacks illegally, connect them to the electricity grid, get access to water, or familiarise oneself with the surrounding environment in order to find food or care. This is followed by a period of occupation during which the families manage to stay put, consolidating their social and territorial roots in an unfavourable context (Mercier, Olivera, 2016). In the vast majority of cases, the next disruptive event occurs days or years after the establishment. It may be linked to an accident (fire, violence between occupants, flooding) that requires institutional intervention, or it may be caused by a simple prefectoral eviction order. Evictions from living quarters are usually accompanied by the neutralisation of the areas where people have settled: wooded areas or vacant lots are razed to the ground and immediately fenced off to prevent any new settlements; shacks are bulldozed, and so on. In this way, our cities bear the scars of these shanty towns, these areas deemed undesirable. By neutralising them, the public authorities are trying to erase all trace of them, making it very difficult to reconstruct a memory of these "places of refuge".

In this way, we are faced with a relationship of opposition between an order and those who face up to that order. The refuge is therefore both a space of resistance and a place of survival and daily life.

Michel Serres, in The Five Senses, defines shanty towns as "mixed places", i.e. spaces where wanderings materialise and movements are focused (Serres, 1985). Through this form of occupation and this way of living, he sees a landscape singularity.

By taking a tactile approach to the territory, we can observe the gestures and occupations of each person: the ritual moments when the migrants sing religious songs, or the moments of joy around an improvised football match. These experiences of place produce bonds and contribute to the idea that a community of people is reconstituted in a world governed by its own rules, an in-between, a world between worlds.
<figure><img src="image_42.png" /><figcaption>[fig.5] The four heterotopic figures. From top to bottom: the refuge (here the Avenue Léon Jouhaux shanty town), the asylum (the Hellemes integration village), the prison (the Calais administrative detention centre), the place of</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_43.png" /><figcaption>[fig.6] Processual logic of the refuge. Column from left to right: establishment, occupation, disruption, destruction.</figcaption></figure>

Source: elaborated by the author
<figure><img src="image_44.png" /><figcaption>[fig.7] The processual logic of the «in-between». Source: elaborated by the author</figcaption></figure>

These "mixed places", this transit territory urgently occupied by migrants, are therefore a landscape where hopes and shortcomings are balanced. They are characterised by a processual logic that is perpetually "made" and "unmade", where the temporary seems permanent.

## The place of origin, a fourth heterotopic figure

In following the Radu family's itinerary, various places were filmed and observed. Among them, the village of Tinca seems to be an important point in the exile journey of these migrants from Eastern Europe. The transnational household comes from this small Romanian village between the towns of Oradea and Arad. After three weeks spent observing these places and living in Constantin's house, the idea of the existence of a fourth heterotopic figure emerged [fig.5].

The 'place of origin' is the place to which Roma families return regularly, even after they have left it. Often it is a family home belonging to one or more members of the family. It may be the place where they grew up, or a place that they later moved into to make it a "home away from home". It is also the place that precedes exile, the house or village of origin from which the transnational household originates (Benarrosh-Orsoni, 2019).

Although it is not found in the three pillars of extraterritoriality, exception and exclusion (see the three figures introduced by Michel Agier), this figure can also be considered heterotopic according to these criteria: an anthropological place of reference, a place of refuge for relocated memory, a place of both anchoring and uprooting.

In the anthropological sense, the place of origin thus meets three common criteria: identity, relationships and history (Augé 1992)<fnref n="4" />. It is a place of identity.

<footnote n="4">⁴ Roma mobility" is generally perceived as inseparable from a "diasporic culture". However, many families show a very strong attachment to their country of origin and to the village or neighbourhood where they were born. Many of them invest a large proportion of their income in renovating or building their homes (Benarrosh-Orsoni 2015).</footnote>
The place of origin is a place to which families go occasionally or regularly. They go there to start renovation projects, for summer holidays, celebrations or family events. These "return trips" are closely conditioned by the families' personal resources. The most precarious often reduce these trips to the bare minimum. Sometimes they stay for a few days or a few months. Moreover, this practice is discreet in the eyes of the institutions. The fact that 'migrant Roma' maintain ties with their country of origin can be perceived as a lack of 'willingness to integrate' (Mercier, Olivera, 2016). Thus, in the case of an asylum situation, returning to Romania, even for a very short time, runs the risk of losing one's 'hosted' status. Whether in the case of refuge, asylum, prison or place of origin, and despite different processual logics, the element common to all these points is therefore found in the quality of temporary occupation of the place. The territory of exile is therefore a place where the temporary appears to be permanent.

<figure><img src="image_45.png" /><figcaption>[fig.8] Source: elaborated by the author</figcaption></figure>
Conclusion

The evolution of our contemporary borders involves a multiplicity of spatially and temporally dispersed
places. Although they differ in function, form and boundary, many of them remain interconnected.
Asylum, refuge, prison and place of origin make up the Borderlands of the Radu family's journey [fig.7].
Borderlands in which the relationship with time is the common denominator. Asylum defines a
temporality of occupation of the place with a view to future "integration", prison defines the duration of a
sentence, while refuge is experienced in a processual logic that is "made" and "unmade". The place of
origin, on the other hand, is occupied for a limited time: "you go there to leave again". So the territory of
exile seems to be characterised by a particular relationship with time, a succession of places where the
temporary is permanent.

This tendency is also reflected in the logic of displacement. Leaving an occupied place leads to movement
towards new places. A wandering space-time in which people find themselves without anchorage.

The "in-between place" refers to the movement of an individual or group from one Borderland to
another. In a way, it refers to a rite of passage that corresponds to the different stages that an individual or
group goes through when changing status [fig.8]. It reflects a number of issues relating to changes in the
status of boundaries, whether at an administrative or social level, or in terms of spatial relegation. By
virtue of its eminently structuring aspect in the condition of the exile, the route also becomes a place in its
own right.

However, this approach raises a number of points that need to be clarified. The pitfall would be to
perceive Roma families as indissociable from a centuries-old 'diasporic culture' by promulgating a
stereotypical identity image of the 'Roma': nomadism, material insecurity and community organisation.
These stereotypes can be found in many 'public integration projects' that mention 'aid for sedentarisation',
even though many of the 'beneficiaries' have never lived in anything other than a house (Mercier, Olivera
2016). If there is such a thing as exile, it exists because of the constraints associated with economic
migration. When families come to France, they settle in the hope of a better life, and the shantytown is
seen as a first step, a "pioneering" stage before being able to integrate the "social order". The shantytowns
are places of waiting where, for many of them, the desire to find work, decent housing and a future for
their children is intertwined.

However, if the territory of exile in which these families find themselves is not a constituent part of their
identity, it would be equally misleading to denigrate all the effects that this exile has on their lives. So we
need to think about ways of expressing ourselves that can convey a tangible, human reality. Whether in
terms of relocated material and immaterial memory, or the feeling of double absence (Abdelmalek Sayad
2004), an entire system of social organisation is articulated by this geographical fragmentation. Memory is
built around an absence, the absence of a land, this land from which I am absent (Agier 2011). Similarly,
the notion of 'home' is turned upside down. Levinas writes: "Home is neither nature nor root, but a
response to a wandering that it stops". "Is 'inhabiting the world' just being present in the place where you
are? Does the temporary make it possible to be exactly in the world?"

Bibliography

Agier, M. (2013), ‘Campement urbain. Du refuge naît le ghetto’, Payot, Paris

Agier, M. (2014), ‘Parcours dans un paysage flottant de frontières’, Revue européenne des migrations internationales

Amilhat Szary, A (2015), ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une frontière aujourd’hui ?’, PUF, Paris

Amilhat Szary, A. Giraut, F. (2015) ‘Mobile borders’, http://www.pacte.cnrs.fr

Amilhat Szary, A. Hamez, G (2020) ‘Frontières’, Armand Colin, Paris

Augé, M. (1992), ‘Non-Lieux, Introduction à une anthropologie de la surmodernité’, La Librairie du XXIe siècle,
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# TOD against the context in cross-border metropolis? Visions and paradoxes in the case of the Great Geneva Agglomeration.

Flore Guichot

EPFL - ITN-MSCA - TOD-IS-RUR

Paola Viganò, Vincent Kaufmann, Greet De Block

Expected thesis defence: November, 2025

flore.guichot@epfl.ch

Urbanization and heavy transport infrastructure coordination has become one of the leading principles of sustainable urban growth and mobility transition. This paper proposes a critical reflection on the implementation of the Transit-Oriented Development model in asymmetrical and interdependent cross-border metropolitan regions. Using the Great Geneva as the main research case, this contribution highlights the ecological but also social risks which this intrinsically selective and hierarchic model bears. By looking at the evolution of panning vision as well as policies and mechanisms that shaped the urban structure of the metropolis, this analysis showcases the need to take a step back to understand the current territorial paradoxes systemically and to search for hybrid strategies through a more contextual socio-spatial reading.

## Introduction

The articulation between urban patterns and sustainable travel behaviors within metropolitan territories, characterized by ever-increasing land consumption and mobility flows (Offner 2018), is one of the major challenges of the contemporary territorial project. The coordination of heavy public transport systems and urban development on nodes, also called Transit-Oriented Development (TOD), is the dominant model in practice and theory. It is internationally recognized to support sustainable metropolitan development (Newman, Kenworthy 2015). The question of the transferability of such a model in different contexts has been a major theme in academic research (Thomas et al. 2018; Thomas, Bertolini 2017; Tan et al. 2014). This body of research has produced knowledge on successful TOD policy implementation and how to overcome barriers in different contexts. However, when looking at the implementation of the model through a transport planning lens, results tend to be slightly tautological marked by a strongly normative and progressist ideology (Qviström 2015; Papa, Bertolini 2015).

In the Swiss context, changes in governance and practices of coordination of transport and urbanization have been the subject of much interest in the academic sphere (Kaufmann, Sager 2016; Walter, Roy-Baillargeon 2015; Gallez et al. 2013). This research mainly used historic and comparative approaches between Swiss or international agglomeration cases to assess cooperation and coordination mechanism. However, the spatial condition in which this coordination takes place and the impact of such a hegemonic model in specific contexts is still little documented. And this, even though some scholars have called upon the necessity of a critical gaze on the current Transit-Oriented Development and its role in metropolization processes (Qvinstrom et al. 2019; Vigano et al. 2017). The case of the Great Geneva is used as an “extreme case” (Flyvberg 2006) to reflect on the implementation of the largely Swiss-driven model in the cross-border territory. This contribution aims to identify the impact of the turn to Transit-Oriented Development model in cross-border metropolises, focusing on the socio-spatial condition in which the model is being developed.

This research intends to address the tension between current metropolitan TOD-supported growth ambition and the specificities of cross-border territory. By doing so, it intends to go beyond normative assumptions and fill the spatial and disciplinary gaps between the TOD model, based on transport planning, and the empirical observation of territorial development.

Firstly, it traces the emergence of the Swiss type of TOD, as the main growth model for metropolitan spaces, under national support. Secondly, it draws on planning history to understand the different visions that lead the cross-border metropolis development mirroring it with the actual evolution of urbanization. And finally, at present, this contribution highlights the paradoxes which emerge from the application of the model in the Great Geneva, identifying social and ecological risks associated with the model and the counter vision that could support future hybridization for the metropolis.

## From city-territory to Transit-Oriented agglomeration development

*A national turn toward the metropolis.*
At the end of the 20th century, major works and studies identified the delayed but drastic change of scales of the urban phenomenon in Switzerland under the impetus of economic development, in the strongly attractive but also constrained Swiss territory (Bassand 2004; 1995). Despite the persistence of ruralist ideology (Walter 1994), the Swiss metropolization process was well underway, defining new spatial, social, cultural, and political relations, and needs (Leresche, Bassand 1991). Hyper concentration, conurbation, the massification of flows, and increasing social exclusion and inequalities, going far beyond the traditional municipal scale of action, became a major political and planning concern (Hildebrand 2006). While in parallel, the protection of rural, natural, and more widely, of the environment which had gained strength in the second part of the century, became operationalized with for example the first *plan sectoriel des surfaces d'assolement* (geographic census of cultivable land and amount to be protected). Hence, in planning logics, an opposition between the built and the natural and rural environments started to arise. Therefore, metropolization process and preservation process were increasingly understood as two separate problems, each advocating for specific and sectorial solutions.

Under the pressure of the Swiss cities union, the revision of the constitution in 1999 and the following report on Confederation agglomerations policies, despite advocating not to be a re-orientation of territorial priorities, clearly conceptualize the dominant new role that cities and their agglomeration were taking in the Swiss territory both spatially, financially, and politically (Rapport du Conseil Fédéral 2001). The myth of communal autonomy fades away and enacts a regionalist approach to Swiss planning (Joye, Leresche 1993; Walter, Roy-Baillargeon 2015). Rather than a "city coextensive of the territory" (Corboz 1999) on a national scale, the "rational occupation" (Constitution fédérale de la Confédération suisse 1999) of the territory is now associated with the vision of a "polycentric network of urban system" (Hildebrand, 2006) superimposed on 'natural' and 'rural' territories. This vision cuts drastically with the previous spatial and political stand for *Concentration Décentralisée* at the national scale. It takes a radical turn to support and emphasize a selective and hierarchical development processes structured upon metropolitan regions development (Viganò et al. 2017). Hence, since the beginning of the 20th century, rather than a means to "ensure the harmonious development of the entire country" (Loi fédérale sur l'aménagement du territoire 1979) the ability to accommodate growth while preserving natural landscapes became a metropolitan matter.

*Toward a TOD model at the Agglomeration scale against sprawl and for sustainable development.*

This polarization of political and planning concerns went along with a new operational tool: *les projets d'agglomération*. This tool inaugurates a new kind of metropolitan governance aimed at developing a "vertical, horizontal and multisectoral" (Union des villes Suisse 2016) cooperation between the different territorial scales both nationally and internationally. Showcasing that the main issue is now that of the sustainable accommodation of urban growth in the agglomeration perimeter<fnref n="1" />, this cooperation tool is directly aimed at the "efficient coordination of transport and urbanization" (Union des villes Suisse 2016) to promote territorial coherence.

To support the agglomeration project, the creation in 2006 of the *programme en faveur du trafic d'agglomération* (program in favor of agglomeration traffic) supported by federal funds, marks a turning point for Swiss metropolitan development (Walter, Roy-Baillargeon 2015). This fund enacts the specific support and intervention of the federal government in metropolitan development processes. This fund, based on oil taxes revenues, enables the confederation to co-finance agglomeration measures, up to 45%, if, and only if, they are associated with mobility infrastructures, within the framework of agglomeration plans. In addition, the allocation of this fund is subject to the organization of urban development around public transport infrastructure following the objectives set by the *Loi fédérale pour l'Aménagement du Territoire* (LAT). The revision of this law in 2014, directly aims at stemming sprawl, requiring the coordinating of urbanization and transport with the explicit ambition to develop "compact built environments" while developing "the city on the city". To support these aims, the LAT also introduced the distinction between '*zone-à-bâtir*' (buildable areas) and '*hors zone-à-bâtir*' (out-of-buildable area), increasingly pushing for the reduction of urban

<footnote n="1">¹ VACo Perimeter defined by the ARE. (*Office fédéral du développement territorial*) on a statistical basis (Population, number of commuter workers, etc.).</footnote>
perimeters. Therefore, today, following the idea that “mass-transit needs mass” (Suzuki et al, 2013),
development is to be set in the remaining empty spaces of these urban perimeters to justify
infrastructural investments, strongly cutting with the fine grain and highly subsidized multimodal
transport system which characterizes the Swiss context. Hence, altogether, the Swiss federal support
for Agglomeration development strongly sets incentive and normative measures to promote a
Transit-Oriented Development model for Swiss metropolises.

Finally, the allocation of federal funding for agglomeration projects follows a specific process. The fund is partitioned between agglomerations according to a federal rating assessing the compliance of the general agglomeration project with federal policies. More specifically, the different measures proposed within the agglomeration plan are rated according to ‘efficiency’ criteria defining the ‘cost-utility’ ratio of the measure, assessing its relevance and maturity based on transport efficiency, densification, security, and environmental impact sub-criterias (ARE 2023). Thereby, this process puts in competition the different agglomerations with each other but also the different measures within the agglomeration according to a specific growth-supporting lens. We can also note that the very rapid pace of the process, 4 years between generations, strongly pushes toward a specific type of rapid mass new development. Thus, the agglomeration plans and their financial incentives account for a more and more clean-cut reading of the metropolitan space, between development corridors and the rest of the agglomeration space. This top-down planning logic supports hegemonic development strategies, regardless of the context. More ‘mature’ and easily compactable urban fabrics well-served by public transport are seen as sustainable places to accommodate growth in opposition to the rest of the urban fabric. Therefore, despite having participated in the reduction of the pace of land consumption, this cartesian and binary reading based on public transport infrastructure as the main driver of urban growth supports a selective and self-enforcing polarization mechanism on corridors, promoting spatial hierarchization at the agglomeration scale.

The Great Geneva, a case of trans-border TOD in an interdepend and asymmetric territory

The financial and planning process described earlier has the particularity, to be applied in the same manner in both Swiss and cross-border metropolises. It allowed the co-financing of transport development across but also outside national borders. Even more so, the cross-border agglomerations of Basel and Geneva are even considered to be the best-rated in the last evaluation process<fnref n="2" />. However, mobility and urbanization coordination takes on a particular dimension in cross-border territories. Firstly, as many scholars have pointed out, cross-border metropolises are specific cases where differences in remuneration, taxation, land and living cost, or access to services have a direct impact on mobilities across the border, creating an interplay between unbalanced socio-economic conditions and spatial interdependency, beyond the traditional center-periphery relation (Sohn 2014; Decoville et al. 2013; Gallez et al. 2013). Secondly, because of the difference in terms of embodied built and infrastructural capital on each side of the border. And thirdly, in terms of power relations in the planning process depending on both financial, but also human, social, and institutional capital available on each side of the border (Bertrand et al., 2015). The ‘Swiss style’ model of Transit-Oriented Development hence takes a specific dimension in cross-border agglomerations. Because of the country’s geographical, economic, and instructional position in the European territory, as well as its decentralized political system, the Swiss cities have a strong vertical power relation with their cross-border edge regions. In addition, the specific decentralized democratic Swiss system strongly tempers the top-down application of the model. Indeed, no planning tools can strictly tight together infrastructural implementation and urban development, unlike the ‘contrat d’axe’ for example in France, since citizens, through referendums have the ability at the municipal level to challenge any development project, which has no equivalent in more politically centralized systems.

The Greater Geneva agglomeration is a large and constrained territory in the watershed of the Rhone River caught between Leman Lake shores, the Arve Valley, and the Jura and pre-Alpine mountains. The cross-border agglomeration joins together the Geneva Canton with part of the Vaud Canton, Haute-Savoie and Ain French regions. Since 2007, following the new orientation of Swiss planning, the cross-border coordination of Greater Geneva has been federated around a radio-centric Transit-Oriented Development model, aiming to support the vision of a “green, multipolar, compact, and

<footnote n="2">² Rapport d'examen des projets d'agglomération de 4e génération, 2023, ARE.</footnote>
proximity-based, cross-border metropolis" (PA4, 2021, 24) with new public transport axes as its backbone. Here the TOD model is set as a means to bring coherence to the cross-border agglomeration as one entity. This development model is also at the heart of the agglomeration's recent commitment toward the socio-ecological transition which includes carbon neutrality and zero net artificialization by 2050 (Charte Grand Genève en transition, 2022).

As the recent change of name of the agglomeration asserts, the canton de Geneve has the leading role in the Grand Geneve Agglomeration development project. Power relations in the coordination project are strongly vertical with instructional, political, and financial means strongly polarized in the Canton in comparison to small parts of edge regions in the French hyper-centralized system. The Great Geneva is usually qualified as a cross-border metropolis with a strong ‘functional integration’ (Sohn 2014). This functional integration relates mainly to the labor flows, with nearly 70%<fnref n="3" /> of the total amount of jobs in the agglomeration located in the Geneva canton. This form of asymmetry also goes with a high level of interdependence, with nearly half of Geneva's workforce living on the other side of the border [fig.1]. This interdependency was made even clearer during the Covid crisis with the inability to close the national border without paralyzing Geneva. However, the integration in terms of non-work-related activities is way milder and socially conditioned (Gumy 2022).

The differential in life costs between France and Switzerland creates a clear demarcation at the border. While, beyond the border, the French part of the agglomeration has the particularity of being at the same time a very wealthy region by French standards, due to cross-border workers' income, and one of the most socially unequal territories of the country since French base salaries are disconnected from the ever-increasing housing and live cost in the bordering space [fig.2]. Hence, despite the political engagement to “re-balance” the territory to ensure “solidarity, cohesion, and social equity” since the first *Charte d'Aménagement Franco-Valdo-Genevoise* in 1997, the Great Geneva remains a strongly interdependent and asymmetrical territory. Little to no financial, land policies, or fiscal levers have been implemented since then to remedy the situation despite planning cooperation through the agglomeration plan.

<figure><img src="image_46.png" /><figcaption>[fig.1] Left: Incomes and inequalities. Source: elaborated by the author, data from INSEE and OFS. [fig.2] Right: Metropolitan integration. Source: elaborated by the author, from INSEE and OFS data.</figcaption></figure>

## Erasing, Remanence, and Inertia – Planning and the territory

*Erasing of the transport network and rur urbanization process*

The urban development of the canton de Geneve is the story of a city-canton cut from both its national and morphological territory through historical interplays (Barbier, Schwarz 2016). Because

<footnote n="3">³ In 2022 according to the Office cantonal de la statistique (Ocstat).</footnote>
of this particularity, and its peculiar geographical position of being a dead-end city, main transport corridor development had avoided the city. To remedy this enclaved positioning, and connect the city to its natural territory, by the 1920's the city of Geneva had developed one of the densest tramway systems in Europe going in rays across the national border (Barbier, Schwarz 2019). However, this structure was nearly completely erased and replaced by a more efficient bus system when the first drastic demographic growth in the region erupted, enacting the era of the “all-car-oriented-development” dominating Geneva's planning (Gallez et al. 2008). At the same time, from the beginning of the 1950s, Geneva, aware of the restricted nature of its territory, sets in motion mechanisms to protect its agricultural and natural capital. This rapid awareness triggered a relatively early spillover mechanism of the urban growth towards neighboring French territories where the price of land was lower and the availability of land greater (Hussy 2019).

The development of the agglomeration followed a traditional “rurbanization” process (Bauer, Roux 1976) with the combination of continuous development of the core city and aggregation around pre-existing village nodes [fig.3]. However, the early preservation of Geneva’s rural periphery to the north of the Canton, marks a clear-cut differentiation of the development across the frontier and a more important and faster transformation on the French side of what has for a long time been called the ‘other Geneva’ beyond the preserved green belt (Diener et al. 2005). In the first phase, until the end of the 40’s, there is clear development based on the rail infrastructure and a smaller one related to the tramways. By the 1960’s we see an important development of Geneva, both transversally and on the lake shore, and the development of polarities on the main road system. However, between the 60’s and the 80’s a much less hierarchical urbanization started to take shape supported by the strong car-oriented infrastructural development. This development on the French side is achieved by aggregation around the pre-existing village structure on first but also secondary roads and according to the topo-morphological logics, while the radial continuous urbanization of Geneva came to join the borders of the canton [fig.4]. Thereby, between the 1960’s and today, 60% of population growth has been accommodated on the French side, mainly around village areas and small local centers [tab.1] defining a spread but concentrated development based on village structure in the main plain, developing a multipolar urban structure with little hierarchization.

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2"></th><th colspan="3">Part of growth absorbed:</th></tr><tr><th>On the french side of the Agglomeration</th><th>In French Village, local and peripheral communes</th><th>In Great Geneva Village, local and peripheral communes</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Growth 2018-1968</td><td>61</td><td>63,7</td><td>62,3</td></tr><tr><td>Growth 2018-1982</td><td>43,9</td><td>68,9</td><td>45,1</td></tr><tr><td>Growth 2018-1999</td><td>59,7</td><td>66,7</td><td>42,6</td></tr><tr><td>Growth 1999-1982</td><td>62,9</td><td>72,8</td><td>79,1</td></tr><tr><td>Growth 1982-1975</td><td>62,6</td><td>71,2</td><td>77,2</td></tr><tr><td>Growth 1975-1968</td><td>61</td><td>44</td><td>50,4</td></tr><tr><td>Growth 1968-1954</td><td>43,4</td><td>33,8</td><td>15,6</td></tr></tbody></table>

Avant 1920

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /></figure>

1960

<figure><img src="image_48.png" /></figure>

1980

<figure><img src="image_49.png" /></figure>

2020

<figure><img src="image_50.png" /><figcaption>[fig.3] Great Geneva development scheme. Source: elaborated by the author from Roux and Brauer's diagram</figcaption></figure>

<caption>Table 1: Population growth from 1954 until today in the Great Geneva region, according to commune types. Source: elaborated by the author, from INSEE, OFS and structure urbaine per commune SITG.</caption>
<figure><img src="image_51.png" /><figcaption>[fig.4] Up: Great Geneva development. Source: elaborated by the author from carte de l'état major, carte Siegfried, built fabric from data.gouv, SITG. [fig.5] Down: 'good' and 'bad' development Scheme. Source: A.Bodemer, *Livre d'or du bimilinaire*, 1942.</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_52.png" /></figure>

## Visions et planning

The canton of Geneva supported a particular model of a “compact city on automobile networks” (Gallez et al. 2013), of which the *Plan Directeur* of 1966 is the apogee. This period advocates for a concentrated but discontinuous development of the city still focusing on the idea that a ‘good’ urban development should maintain natural connections in-between urban poles rather than enforcing axial development [fig.5]. The so-called ‘*Plan Alvéolaire*’ of 1966 draws a hyper-compact Geneva structured on motorway belts. This vision considered too radical will be rejected by the population through a referendum (Joye, Kaufman, 1998). However, the edition of this plan corresponds to the French law for land orientation and with it, the implementation of the first *Schéma Directeur d'Aménagement Urbain* (SDAU). Thus, the first master plan of the French Genevois, and the first representation of a planning vision at the metropolitan scale, is structured around the vision of an alveolar agglomeration [fig.6]. This plan shows the significant multipolarity already taking shape in connections. However, in the 1980s Geneva

<figure><img src="image_53.png" /></figure>
took a drastic turn towards public transport and the question of how-to management labor induced cross-border flows, growing in intensity, became a priority. The *Plan Directeur de Geneve* of 1989 still clearly expresses the will to stem the oil-stain development of Geneva towards its cantonal borders while developing a transport system beyond its borders. Hence, the first *Plan Directeur Transfrontalier* in 1996, carried out on the scale of the agglomeration in 1996, largely relies on this alveolar and multipolar vision while shifting from car-oriented development to transport-oriented development [fig.7]. Thus, by the end of the 20th century, we can still read a continuity between automobile planning and transport planning with a very articulated vision of what the public transport network should be at the agglomeration scale. Nevertheless, with public transport planning, we can already see a much more hierarchical reading of the urban structure.

<figure><img src="image_54.png" /><figcaption>[fig.6] Left: Schméma Directeur d'Aménagement et d'Urbanisame du Genevois francais, 1967. Source: Archive fond CRR. [fig.7] Right: Plan Directeur Transfronlalier, 1996. Source: Chartre d'Aménagement Franco-Valdo-Genevois, 1997.</figcaption></figure>

The first Franco-Valdo-Genevois' agglomeration plan, fitting the transborder coordination into the tool provided by Swiss planning, bears witness to an important shift of vision for the Great Geneva agglomeration. The main vision becomes that of radiocentric corridors around Geneva reaching out to the French side of the agglomeration to accommodate 'sustainable development'. This vision is confirmed by the definition of radiocentric study areas for the second-generation plan, also called PACA (Permiètre d'Aménagement Coordonné d'Agglomeration). The ambition of this reading is to get out of the typical center-periphery and French-Swiss divide (Quincerot 2009). Nevertheless, this vision establishes another form of duality where the spaces "outside the networks" are gradually being disregarded. Nearly all the urban structures outside the radio centric model are defined as 'villages' in the first agglomeration, whether qualifying actual Swiss villages or secondary or small French centers [fig.8]. Finally, in the fourth agglomeration plan, taking a strong stand to adapt to the necessity of the socio-ecological transition, they are completely erased in both the transport plans and the overall vision of Greater Geneva 2040 [fig.9]. Thus, the TOD vision proposed by the agglomeration plans increasingly tends to ignore the question of spaces 'in-between' (Sieverts 2004) the main axes and poles, going against the alveolar vision of the territory. Embodying the strongly selective and normative bias of the TOD logic, it puts in opposition good compact urban form well-served by public transport and bad urbanization condemned to car-dependent or relegated to aesthetic and ruralist values. Therefore, by giving priority to the search for radical solutions in the face of environmental challenges, the dominant vision for the Great Geneva neglects the pre-existing tissue in favor of a hyper-selectivity and vertical growth-oriented model putting in opposition the more endogenous urban development and the planning vision.
<figure><img src="image_55.png" /></figure>

[fig.8] Left: Schéma d'Agglomération. Horizon 2030. Source: Agglomération Franco-Valdo-Genevoise, Projet d'Agglomération de 1er Génération, 2007. [fig.9] Right: Vision d'ensemble Grand Genève 2040. Source: Grand Genève - Agglomération Franco-Valdo-Genevoise, Projet d'Agglomération de 4er Génération, 2021.

## The contemporary paradoxes of the TOD, risks, and counter-visions.

### Geneva a specific case of Swiss style Trans-Boarder TOD

From this increasingly selective and hierarchical planning vision, tending to neglect the urbanization of the last half century, emerges the spatial paradox that the metropolis is facing today. The TOD bases project, intended to tackle the transition of the Agglomeration toward carbon neutrality, supports at great expense and with great difficulty, the establishment of a radio-centric system which only served 50% of the metropolitan urban fabric<fnref n="4" />. Therefore, around forty percent of the current population of Greater Geneva lives "outside" of the main public transport infrastructure's reach<fnref n="5" />. Meanwhile, according to scenarios developed by the Great Geneva still, only 52,6% of the population should have access to a very good or good public transport service by 2040⁶, meaning that massive investment in transport will only allow to buffer radio-centric growth effect rather than support a modal transition for people living in the metropolis today.

The proportion of people with poor to no public transport access is very high in the Great Geneva (39,1%) if we compare it to Zurich (23,3%), Berne (25%), or Basel (32,8%) Agglomerations [Tab.2]. This result is even more striking if we consider that the Great Geneva has a densely populated central core compared to other Swiss agglomerations. Quite obviously, Zurich's densely meshed metropolitan transport system is much more successful in responding to its dispersed urban structure with 76,7% of its population beneficiating from a very good to average public transport service. Nevertheless, both Bern and Basel metropolitan areas have a radio-centric transport structure. In the case of Berne, the rather concentrated urban structure of the metropolitan space can partly explain its high service quality. Basel agglomeration showcases that the transborder nature of agglomerations strongly impacted the relationship between transport and urbanization. However, the Basel communal-based planning did not have early protective mechanisms, enforcing spillover mechanism across the border, and represents a more traditional case of metropolitan corridor development on its persistent transport system [fig.10]. This comparison highlights that the current state of the Great Geneva Agglomeration is due to a multiplicity of factors from its topo-morphological and institutional conditions to historical political and planning decisions, which created a strong path dependency. The Great Geneva is therefore a specific situation, which is not only one of "delay", as it is usually asserted, but one of another form of urban structure based in its particular conditions of development. These are particularly ill-suited to the TOD model in which strong infrastructure reticular re-development is utterly disconnected from the current context.

<footnote n="4">⁴ GIS calculation made on the base of public transport services in 2020 (ARE) and the urban fabric 2019 (SITG).</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ GIS calculation made on the base of public transport services in 2020 (ARE) and georeferenced population density per 100m2 in 2020 (OFS).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ Scenario MOCA developed for the Plan d'Agglomération de 4ème generation. PA4, June 2021.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_56.png" /><figcaption>[fig.10] Comparison map of urban and transport structure between four Swiss metropolises in 2020: Basel, Zurich, Great Geneva and Berne. Source: elaborated by the author from Copernicus, ARE 2020, OpenStreetMap, OFS and Europa.Eu data.</figcaption></figure>

<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>Zurich</th><th>Basel</th><th>Berne</th><th>Geneva</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th>Urban structure</th><td>Strongly dispersed</td><td>Radial and dispersed</td><td>Concentrated</td><td>Radial and dispersed</td></tr><tr><th>Transport system structure</th><td>Network</td><td>Radiocentric</td><td>Radiocentric</td><td>Radiocentric</td></tr><tr><th>Topographic constraint</th><td>Low</td><td>Low</td><td>High</td><td>High</td></tr><tr><th>Continuity of the public transport system</th><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><th>Surface Bati pas desseri par le TP</th><td>12</td><td>9,5</td><td>6</td><td>49</td></tr><tr><th>Transborder</th><td>No</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td><td>Yes</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><caption>Table 2: Comparison table of urban and transport structure between four Swiss metropolises in 2020: Basel, Zurich, Great Geneva and Berne. Source: elaborated by the author based in GIS analysis from Copernicus, ARE 2020, OFS and Europa.Eu data.</caption><tr><td>Protection of open space before federal policy</td><td>No</td><td>No</td><td>No</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Part of the population in central agglomeration</td><td>45</td><td>36</td><td>22</td><td>44</td></tr><tr><td>Part of the population in periphery</td><td>55</td><td>64</td><td>78</td><td>56</td></tr><tr><td>Early car restriction policy</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>Yes</td><td>No</td></tr><tr><td>Population of the Agglomeration with very good to medium public transport service</td><td>76,7</td><td>67,2</td><td>75</td><td>60,9</td></tr><tr><td>Population of the Agglomeration with bad to no public transport service</td><td>23,3</td><td>32,8</td><td>25</td><td>39,1</td></tr></table>

## Ecological risks and socio-spatial marginalization

The miss match between the planning model and the current urban structure of the agglomeration also generates another spatial paradox at the scale of the agglomeration between the different objectives of ecological transition. On the one hand, 52%<fnref n="7" /> of the future developments are located outside the transport axes in areas with little or no transport service, which showcases the inertia of the cross-border structure and the complexity of its reorientation. However, most of them are redevelopment or projects on already artificialized land. On the other hand, while the Greater Geneva is committing to soil preservation in order to achieve net zero-artificialization by 2050, 47% of future development is planned on agricultural land among which 65% is on the French territory. The vast majority of these are located on future public transport infrastructures [fig.11]. Thus, the proposed model creates an internal contradiction between modal shift and land protection. Hence, despite the questionability of the ability to truly re-oriented growth the current model clearly puts in opposition new development and the adaptation of existing urban structure. Therefore, current planning takes the risk to support a head-along metropolization process in which new flows induced by mono-functional mass development on arable land are barely supported by new infrastructure rather than sustaining ecological transition processes. Specialized development of which the latest ZAC project in Ferney-Voltaire is a striking example, highlighted by *Terre de Luttes* as one of the most ecologically detrimental projects on the French territory<fnref n="8" />.

<footnote n="7">⁷ GIS calculation based on public transport services in 2020 (ARE) and spatialized future development project (SITG)</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ Rapport projet local, impact global. (in)compatibilité entre les objectifs de transition écologique et la réalité de terrain?, Terre de lutte, Mai 2022.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_57.png" /><figcaption>[fig.11] Great Geneva development and public transport access in 2030. Source: elaborated by the author from SITG and ARE data.</figcaption></figure>

In addition to ecological risk, in the cross-border asymmetrical context of the Great Geneva, this selectivity of the strong transport and urbanization mechanism needs to be understood not only in the typical duality between transition objectives and economically driven metropolization, but also as an actor socio-spatial dynamic. As described earlier, the Greater Geneva is a socially unbalanced metropolis. As we can see, the social schism in the agglomeration is not only materialized across the border but also organized around main transport corridors leading to Geneva. While the median income strictly marks the borders, in terms of living standards the wealthiest populations on the French side are located not only in the bordering spaces but mainly in the denser well-served by public transport areas. This phenomenon is of course directly related to the very important and ever-growing number of transborder workers in the well-connected French communes. However, in parallel, we also witness that the major poverty rate augmentation in the last ten years has taken place in-between the network's axes, further marking the gap [fig.12]. This can partly be explained by the conjunction of housing and living prices, French-based salaries, and the fact that small French communes do not have the obligation to provide social housing. Nevertheless, precarity is mostly
located at the margin of the model in highly car-dependent areas. In this context the hyper-polarized and selective development model, located in communes where housing prices are high and strongly increasing [fig.2], can only enforce the socio-spatial marginalization process especially when public transport pricing is based on Swiss standards while the Canton de Geneve is slowly restricting car permeability through its frontier and enforcing prerogatives to access social housing<fnref n="9" />.

<figure><img src="image_58.png" /><figcaption>[fig.12] Left: Great Geneva development. Source: elaborated by the author from carte de l'état major, carte Siegfried, built fabric from data.gouv, SITG</figcaption></figure>

Hence, this very vertical transport-based planning of growth tends to transfer metropolitan externalities to the French side of the agglomeration, with increasingly detrimental ecological impact, but also, reinforces the spatial dominance of the reticular agglomeration model directed toward Geneva, and by doing so participates to the socio-spatial marginalization of the metropolitan population ‘outside of the networks’. In this sense, the current radiocentric TOD development in the transborder context of the Great Geneva metropolis is risking supporting a socially selective re-

<footnote n="9">⁹ In February 2022 a referendum accepted by the population demands four years of residency in the canton (instead of two) to be able to apply social housing.</footnote>
bordering (Herzog, Sohn 2014) while chasing « transition » objectives which would have an important socio-ecological impact. The conflicting Geneva bypass highway project, seen as an emancipatory tool for the French Chablais communes while having a major negative environmental impact is one of the representations of such risks.

### (re)Emergence and possible counter visions

In 2020, the Foundation Braillard organized an international competition intended to propose scenarios supporting the ecological transition of the agglomeration. The visions that emerge from this consultation are drastically shifting from the image prefigured by the agglomeration plan. In the seven contributions, the radiocentric image around the central city disappears and the focus is no longer on the ability to accommodate dense growth on public transport but the ability to take advantage of the embodied built and unbuilt capital through mobility networks [fig.12]. This contribution strongly supports the analysis made earlier and tries to find more hydride urban models neither alveolar nor reticular in the usual sense. They offer an image based on the diversity of ways of inhabiting the territory and the plurality of networks. In-between spaces, whether rural, rural-urban, or peri-urban are identified as more flexible spaces which represent opportunities for the socio-ecological transition.

<figure><img src="image_59.png" /><figcaption>[fig.12] Left: Great Geneva development. Source: elaborated by the author from carte de l'état major, carte Siegfried, built fabric from data.gouv, SITG</figcaption></figure>

Aware of the limit of the current agglomeration model in terms of transition and to the little response that the last agglomeration plans call for “proximity-living” brings to the metropolitan space “outside of the networks”, the Great Geneva is currently engaged in a new form of research-by-design through the latest and ongoing PACA process. This consultation based on the work of design teams and participative ateliers, intends to draw possible transition strategies from the edge of the metropolis toward Geneva rather than the other way around. The fine grain territorial and policy analysis provided by the teams strongly enforced the idea of a transition from the ground up based on the existing territorial context. How this contribution will tackle mobility urbanization relation, and further on, how they will be translated in the 5th agglomeration plan remains to be seen.

## Conclusion

The Great Geneva is today at a crossroads in its planning process, which justifies the importance of better understanding its evolution, both in terms of planning and political visions and morphological evolution, to support future development scenarios able to sustain the drastic shift that the socio-ecological transition requires. The national Swiss planning's turn against 'sprawl' lead to a growing selectivity and hierarchization of the urban fabric defining a 'one-size fits all' Transit-Oriented Development strategy for metropolitan growth, supported by financial and institutional logics. In the case of the Great Geneva, the agglomeration plan marks a drastic shift in territorial vision. The alveolar reading fades to give way to a radio-centric reticular reading echoing pre-car structures. Historical, morphological, and political reading allowed us to take a wider gaze upon the current paradoxes that are arising in the metropolis. Highlighting a situation that is not only one of “delayed” infrastructural development but of misfitted strategies with regard to the stratified cross-border context.
But despite the lack of transferability of the vertical and top-down model, the complex socio-spatial cross-border metropolis showcases the idea that the generic application of the model poses socio-ecological risks. First of all, vertical power relations tend to push metropolitan externalities beyond the border, rather than support coherent transition strategies. Second of all, the opposition between well-served compact new urban nodes and the urban fabric "outside of the networks", defined an exclusive and ‘urbano-centered’ transition process. Regardless of how ones gazes upon periurban and rural-urban space, they still constitute a un negligible part of the urban fabric which needs means to adapt to current ecological objectives. The model’s lack of attention to in-between space does not just ignore the peripheries but takes the risk to sustain and ever to relatively increase its car dependency. Finally, in strongly asymmetric and interdependent contexts such as cross-border contexts, the TOD model risks to supports a form of selective re-bordering through transport and urbanization development, enforcing socio-spatial marginalization of the already most vulnerable parts of the metropolitan population.

At a time when the ecological transition is the main challenge of metropolises, this contribution highlights the need to take a step back from generic selective and hierarchical models of development to understand the conditions and the context in which they are implemented. It points out the necessity of a more contextual reading beyond generic growth-supported metropolization processes, to the risk of sustaining, specifically in asymmetrical and unbalanced territorial context, socio-spatial marginalization, and ecological risks. Therefore, the need for hybridization of the TOD model towards a less top-down and more articulated relation between the urban fabric, both new and pre-existing, and transport networks. More so, these hybrid strategies need to be in line with the existing path-dependent spatial logics, adapted to the specificity of places as well as plural and horizontal territorial relationships.

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# From lines and nodes to edges and dialogues in the dispersed territory.
The case of former railway line 87 in the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-
Tournai

Sophie Leemans

KU Leuven

Supervisor: prof. dr. Maarten Gheysen

Expected thesis defence: May 2024

sophie.leemans@kuleuven.be

Dispersed territories are facing complex collective challenges and urban questions that require large-scale transformation. This paper builds further on the conceptualisation of infrastructures as drivers of the urban condition in these territories, therefore defined as lifelines. This research-by-design departs from the idea that interventions in these lifelines eventually lead to a new form of the territory. More specifically it focuses on the case of former railway line 87 in the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai. Section-plan analysis of this partially abandoned, partially retrofitted linear element demonstrates that this initially standardised engineered transportation line that only interacted with its surroundings around its stations or nodes, has evolved into a lifeline that dialogues with the landscape and local conditions through edges. This paper therefore challenges the traditional monofunctional infrastructure design approach and tendency to retrofit former railway infrastructure for solely recreational purposes. Alternatively, railway line 87 could take up a catalyst role as prototype of a multi-layered lifeline.

## Introduction

Urban-rural hybrid territories are increasingly under pressure to provide answers to collective challenges such as flooding, drought, social inequalities, energy transitions and so on. Therefore, research and design into how to rethink these territories is highly needed. In Europe, several of these hybrid territories have been coined since the 1990s, indicating the need for alternative frameworks e.g., *città diffusa* for the Venice region (Indovina, Matassoni and Savino, 1990), *ville-territoire* for the territory between Geneva and St. Gallen (Corboz, 1990), *Zwischenstadt* for the Frankfurt Rhine-Main metropolitan area (Sieverts, 1999), and *la banlieue radieuse* for Flanders (Smets, 1986). Notwithstanding their local specificities, many of these territories point to “a kind of hybrid megalopolitan spatial organisation characterised by the presence of certain urban characteristics in the absence of others” (Viganò, 2012, p. 664), forming an alternative to the urban-rural dichotomy. More recently, a separate strand of research is studying these hybrid territories both in their historical evolution and as a future project, identifying as “in-between territories” (Wandl, 2020), “Horizontal Metropolis” (Cavalieri and Viganò, 2019; Corte and Viganò, 2022), and “All City/All Land” (Gheysen, Scheerlinck and Van Daele, 2017; Gheysen, 2020). To avoid confusion, in this paper these European urban-rural hybrids will further be addressed as dispersed territories, referring among other things, to their scattered spatial configuration.

Despite the awareness of the large-scale challenges that dispersed territories are facing (European Environment Agency, 2006, 2016), answers often remain limited to copy-pasting solutions from compact cities, resulting in “dyslexia” and “agraphia” in urban design (Gheysen, 2020, pp. 103–134). This paper approaches dispersed territories from their infrastructure networks for analysis and as a starting point for design. In this research, infrastructure is understood as all physical networks that are needed to support an urban condition in a dispersed territory, therefore further defined as “lifelines” (Leemans, Van Daele and Gheysen, 2023). This paper presents the case of a former railway line in the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, a French-Belgian cross-border territory. Through analysis of its morphological evolution and research-by-design about retrofitting, this paper aims to demonstrate the potential exemplary role of this former railway line as a prototype for a new infrastructure transition in the dispersed territory. This paper therefore tries to provide an answer to urban questions in dispersed territories through rethinking infrastructure networks.

## Infrastructure and lifelines

*Infrastructure and the urban condition*

The role of infrastructure in dispersed territories has been studied in depth, both in analysis of the present condition e.g., as a way to “splinter urbanism” (Graham and Marvin, 2001), and in future
scenarios e.g., networks of water and roads as a “project of isotropy” (Viganò, Fabian and Secchi, 2016). Infrastructure in these cases can be interpreted as basic (and largely technical) systems of water, mobility, energy, and telecommunications that act as terms for urbanity. This type of infrastructure is sometimes also referred to as hard infrastructure, opposed to soft infrastructure which represents institutions such as healthcare, education, and government systems. Because of the spatial approach of this research the emphasis in this paper is on the first group, the physical infrastructure, and this will further be addressed simply as infrastructure.

In the context of the Anthropocene, notions such as “planetary urbani[s]ation” (Lefebvre, 1970, 2003; Brenner, 2014) have challenged theoretical concepts such as urban, rural and natural as separate categories and rather consider urbanity as a condition that stretches beyond density of population and services. The urban condition has also been described as offering an “ecology of choice”, at the same time generating “positive externalities and the surplus of use value and meaning” (Dehaene, 2018, p. 270). The concept of externalities in the urban context can be illustrated by the example of the hygiene crisis in mid-nineteenth-century London during a hot and dry summer (Dehaene, 2018, pp. 270–271). In the summer of 1858, the low levels of the Thames River caused a tedious odour which bothered all social classes and thus became a collective concern. Consequently, an underground sewage system was set up, which eventually also lead to a new urban reality aboveground, resulting in new public spaces available to both wealthy and impoverished inhabitants [fig.1]. This example demonstrates how overcoming collective challenges or urban questions through infrastructure interventions created positive externalities that benefitted the whole population.

<figure><img src="image_60.png" /><figcaption>[fig.1] Section of the Thames Embankment showing the newly constructed subway, sewage collector system, the Metropolitan Railway and the Pneumatic Railway. Source: Sir Joseph Bazalgette, Illustrated London News, Vol 67/1, 1867, p. 632 © Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library</figcaption></figure>

These technical interventions in infrastructure can thus not be seen separately from their externalities or socio-spatial effects on urban questions. In literature, the urban question has been studied as part of urban sociology, relating to concepts such as the right to the city, collective consumption and urban ideology (Castells, 1972, 1977). More recently, twenty-first-century collective challenges of “changing environment, mobility problems, and social inequalities” (Secchi, 2009, 2011) are described as emblematic for the transition towards new systems of production and governance, set in a recurring pattern of crises throughout the past centuries. Today’s collective challenges are part of the new urban question, in which “old distinctions [...] between city and countryside are redundant, [...] requiring an upgrade and a rethink” (Merrifield, 2014, p. x). To question these traditional dichotomies in the context of dispersed territories, it is necessary to understand and rethink the underlying systems of these territories.
Lifelines of the dispersed territory: conceptualisation

Similar to the above-described large-scale societal transitions in the past, infrastructure systems and networks also transform and evolve within these changing socio-economic contexts. One example is the notion of energy landscapes, indicating that the way energy production, distribution and consumption was organised is expressed in the landscape e.g., the extraction of raw materials in mines and pits (de Roo, 2011; Bhatti et al., 2015). This concept motivated previous research that demonstrated that the way these infrastructure networks were designed and constructed, impacted the inhabitation of the dispersed territory and were crucial in creating an urban condition (Leemans, Van Daele and Gheysen, 2023). In this paper, infrastructure networks that are drivers of an urban condition in the dispersed territory are thus considered lifelines of these territories.

**Railway 87: a lifeline in a dispersed territory**

To investigate the case of a lifeline, this research is set in the dispersed territory of the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai (EM) [fig.2]. The EM is situated in the London-Paris-Brussels triangle, covering two administrative regions in Belgium (South-West Flanders and Picardy Wallonia) and one in France (the Lille metropolis). It is a 3.500 km² cross-border territory with 2.1 million inhabitants, which results in an average population density of 585 inhabitants per square kilometre, indicating its dispersed spatial configuration. As a comparison for this density, Paris has 2.1 million inhabitants on a surface of 105 km², resulting in an average population density of 20.000 inhabitants per square kilometre. Furthermore, the region is characterised by the Lys and Scheldt River valleys and a fine-mazed network of creeks and ditches with housing, agriculture, industry, and recreation in between. Apart from the metropolis of Lille and small- to medium-sized cities such as Tournai and Kortrijk, this territory is mostly made up of villages, hamlets, and dispersed buildings.

<figure><img src="image_61.png" /></figure>

[fig.2] The Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai is a dispersed territory with mixed functions supported by a fine-mazed network of infrastructure networks such as roads, railways, and waterways. Source: elaborated by Sophie Leemans based on data from Geopunt Vlaanderen, Géoportail de la Wallonie, NGI/IGN Belgium, IGN France, 2020

The EM provides a transnational context to investigate lifelines beyond administrative borders. One such lifeline is former railway line 87, which is the main case study discussed in this paper. This former railway line was active for 80 years after it opened in 1883, connecting Tournai with Ronse, Lessines and Bassily over a total distance of 60 kilometres, after which it connected eastwards to railway line 94 to Halle. Today the railway infrastructure has dissolved, but its footprint runs through
both Flemish and Walloon territory and is situated in some of the most dispersed fabric of the EM, away from the conurbations of Lille and Kortrijk which are connected through the Roubaix-Tourcoing corridor [fig.3]. The construction of railway line 87 was part of a very extensive rail- and tramway network of the nineteenth and twentieth century.

<figure><img src="image_62.png" /><figcaption>[fig.3] Former railway line 87 (in red) started in Tournai and is situated in one of the spatially most dispersed fabrics of the EM. Source: elaborated by Sophie Leemans based on data from Geopunt Vlaanderen, Géoportail de la Wallonie, NGI/IGN Belgium, IGN France, 2020</figcaption></figure>

## Remnant of a rich history

### The socio-economic role of the railway network for the urban condition

From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, the construction of an extensive rail- and tramway network has played a pivotal role in establishing an urban condition beyond compact cities. In particular in Belgium, which had the most extensive railway network in the world at that time (Rowntree, 1910), this fine-mazed network was constructed as a way to strengthen the identity of the young state on the one hand, and to make the full territory accessible by tram or train on the other (De Block and Polasky, 2011) [fig.4]. Cheap workmen's fares in combination with laws to stimulate house ownership allowed a growing working industrial population to live a comfortable life in "the countryside" instead of in overcrowded cities as was the case in London and Paris at that time (De Meulder et al., 1999; De Decker, 2020).

<figure><img src="image_63.png" /><figcaption>[fig.4] Inauguration of the electrified tramway from Kortrijk to Menen (1933). Source: Beeldbank Kortrijk</figcaption></figure>
A dispersed settlement pattern already existed before the construction of this rail- and tramway network in the EM territory, as can be seen on the Ferraris maps (1771-1778). These maps display a mosaic carpet of small-scale agriculture plots, farms, houses, and natural elements connected by a fine-mazed network of paved roads and dirt roads. However, it was only from the second half of the nineteenth century that an urban condition was established in this territory, when a growing middle-class population would commute to factories for work by train and tram. The role of the extensive network of tram- and railways can thus be considered pivotal in creating this urban condition. Later, in the second half of the twentieth century the popularisation of the car and the construction of highways took over the role of this rail- and tramway network, as its maintenance became too expensive, and the network was quickly thinned out and was largely replaced by bus lines [fig.5].

<figure><img src="image_64.png" /><figcaption>[fig.5] The extensive rail- and tramway network in the EM around 1950 made the territory accessible from cities to the smallest villages and hamlets. Source: elaborated by Sophie Leemans based on data from Geopunt Vlaanderen, Géoportail de la Wallonie, NGI/IGN Belgium, IGN France, 2020</figcaption></figure>

### *The railway network's morphology: lines and nodes*

The railway network was designed as a standardised engineered construction meandering through the landscape [fig.6]. Directly underneath the railways layers of ballast provide the necessary stability, drainage, and support for the moving weight of the railroad cars. Depending on the existing topography, underneath the ballast an embankment of compacted soil was constructed, as the incline of a railway is limited to a maximum of 2,5%. The substrate underneath this embankment had to be
slightly inclined from the middle outwards to facilitate drainage of water towards ditches on both sides. Local train station buildings were also designed in a standardised way, according to specific typologies used by the state indicated by the first year of use such as “1881”, “1893” or “1895” [fig.7]. The employee in charge of the train station would live on the upper level with his family, while the counters, a waiting room and a warehouse were located on the lower level.

Locally, the presence of a train or tram stop often had a direct impact on the development of villages and hamlets (Leemans, Van Daele and Gheysen, 2023). It was not uncommon for the train stations to be located slightly out of direction from the central part of the village it served. Consequently, a *Stationsstraat* [Station Street] would then connect the main village square to the station, which later played a role in “densifying the road network” as an axis for the construction of new houses or transversal connections between the railway and the supralocal road network (De Meulder *et al.*, 2010, p. 116). Except for its stations, the railway line did not interact spatially with its direct surroundings. These lines were a mono-functional mobility corridors, built for the transportation of goods and people. On a larger scale, the railway system can thus be morphologically understood as a standardised network of lines and nodes.

<figure><img src="image_65.png" /><figcaption>[fig.6] A standard section of an early twentieth-century railway in Belgium. Source: Sophie Leemans, 2023</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_66.png" /><figcaption>[fig.7] Former train stations along railway line 87 in Obigies, Celles, Hérinnes-Warcoing and Russeignies show a recurring station typology. Source: garesbelges.be</figcaption></figure>
# Rethinking railway line 87

Today's tendency to tinker at the edges

Today, a large part of the tram- and railway network has been dismantled and only a limited number of railways are still in use [fig.8]. Tramways which typically ran along an existing road have often completely disappeared and have been replaced by an extra car lane. However, the railway network was a separate system with its embankments and ballast due to the speed and loads of the carriages and were therefore not directly used in the development of the fine-meshed car network. Even though the railway tracks, ballast and overhead lines have mostly been removed, the embankments often still exist remain visible in the landscape, as is the case for railway line 87 [fig.9]. Initiatives to redevelop these embankments into walking or long-distance cycling infrastructure exist both on regional level e.g., *fietssnelwegen.be* in Flanders and RAVeL in Wallonia, and on European level e.g., EuroVelo routes. Between Ronse and Lessines, former railway line 87 has largely been turned into walking and cycling infrastructure, part of EuroVelo 5. Plans exist to extend this path westwards from Ronse towards Escanaffles, where it would connect to the existing path along the Scheldt River. A similar tendency can be detected for the station buildings, of which many have been either been dismantled or abandoned, or retrofitted into private houses, or bars, cafés, or restaurants [fig.10].

<figure><img src="image_67.png" /><figcaption>[fig.8] The (abandoned) rail- and tramway network and the built environment today. Source: elaborated by author based on data from Geopunt Vlaanderen, Géoportail de la Wallonie, NGI/IGN Belgium, IGN France, 2020</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_68.png" /></figure>
<figure><img src="image_69.png" /><figcaption>[fig.9] In Bassily (Wallonia), at the eastern end of former railway line 87, the trajectory of the railway is still visible in the landscape due to the trees and other vegetation that grew on its embankment. Source: elaborated by Sophie Leemans based on images from Google Earth and Street View, 2023</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_70.png" /><figcaption>[fig.10] Former train station and railways along the former railway line 87 in Ollignies (left) and Ghoy (right), located before and after the stop in Lessines. The station in Ollignies is vacant and abandoned, while the one in Ghoy is retrofitted to a house, two common situations for former train stations in the EM. Source: Sophie Leemans, 2022</figcaption></figure>

These examples along former railway line 87 emblematic for the tendency to retrofit infrastructure in an individualistic and/or recreational way. One can wonder whether the full potential of these structures is utilised, as their former role as lifelines in creating an urban condition in the dispersed territory is lost, while this territory is facing urgent collective challenges that require a thorough rethinking of these lifelines. Even though retrofitting the remaining embankments into soft mobility infrastructure can be considered part of a modal shift to stimulate transport by bike instead of by car, the effects remain limited to making soft mobility more attractive. This strategy continues a tradition of pigeonholing to think of infrastructure design and planning in a singular way, while the collective challenges of the dispersed territory today require integrating systems of waste, energy and mobility with water cycles, biodiversity, and food production.

Up to today, many of the linear plots of land of this former railway network are owned by the National Railway Company (SNCB/NMBS), even in parts where the embankment is not distinctively visible (anymore) [fig.11]. This existing network therefore forms an ideal testing bed to rethink infrastructure in the dispersed territory in a more integrated way by interacting with local conditions and as a mediator between urban and rural, city and land, human and nature. To make this possible, this paper analyses the different local conditions of the embankment along former railway line 87.
<figure><img src="image_71.png" /></figure>

[fig.11] Along former railway line 87, just like for most of the former railways in Belgium, the pathways are still owned by National Railway Company (SNCB/NMBS) and therefore offer an opportunity for a research-by-design prototype to rethink former infrastructure in an integrated way. Source: elaborated by Sophie Leemans based on data from Google satellite and Geopunt Flanders, 2022

## Four local conditions

Along former railway line 87, different local conditions can be distinguished. This paper focuses on four zooms of 2,5x2,5km in Obigies (1), Celles (2), Ronse (3) and Ellezelles (4), representative for the various land use patterns of the built environment, agriculture, and vegetation [fig.12]. Each of these zooms show a different evolution of the railway line since it was taken out of service between 1960 and 1975.

In the first zoom, the former railway embankment forms a border between the Scheldt River in the west and the main street of the ribbon settlement Obigies [fig.13]. The area between the embankment and the river is mostly used as agricultural land, but is at the same time largely marked as a Natura 2000 area protected under both Birds and Habitat Directives (European Environment Agency, s.d.). This biologically valuable area coincides with a historical wetland along the meanders of the Scheldt River before it was straightened and widened from the end of the nineteenth century onwards (Ferraris, 1771; Kiden and Verbruggen, 2001). Topographically, the railway embankment itself acts as a flooding barrier as all land between the embankment and the river is classified as a flooding zone. In the second zoom, the former railway line runs through a predominantly agricultural, biologically poor area, with scattered buildings situated west of the village of Celles [fig.13]. This area is dominated by arable farming of winter wheat, corn, chicory, potatoes, and sugar beet with small plots of meadows scattered in between. This spatial configuration is illustrative of the agricultural intensification, one of the four “anthropogenic pressures” recently defined as drivers of European bird population decline in farmlands (Rigal et al., 2023). The decrease of elements such as hedges, and wooded edges leave little space for little space for animals and plants to thrive and migrate. In this zoom around Celles, trees and shrubs are limited to the verges of the former railway embankment, which forms the largest continuous area of this type of vegetation and thus makes it the most biologically valuable zone in the surroundings.

Compared to the first two zooms, in the third zoom the former railway line runs through a dense built environment in Ronse, partially coinciding with a railway line that is still in operation [fig.13]. The agricultural land use is limited, and the vegetation largely exists of privately owned gardens. The former railway line forms a topographic barrier in different directions. At the station, it mediates between the lower historical centre in the north and the residential expansion areas of the second half of the twentieth century in the south. West of the train station, the former railway line runs through a trench of 50 metres wide and 5 metres deep. Southeast of the station, after exiting the residential neighbourhood, the line has been redeveloped into a walking and cycling path called *Mijnwerkerspad* (Miner's path), referring to the workmen that commuted daily with this line during the
nineteenth century. Today, this path has become a collective space for social interaction and recreational activities.

In the fourth zoom, the former railway line runs through a mosaic landscape of arable land, meadows, forest, and housing [fig.13]. For topographic reasons, the railway line was constructed over a kilometre north of the village of Ellezelles and therefore stimulated residential ribbon development around the station along existing streets. In the west, a connection to former railway line 94 is visible through a diverting band of forest. Today, the line has been fully redeveloped as walking and cycling path and due to the differences in topography, in its high and deep verges plants and trees have flourished over time, making it clearly distinguishable in the landscape. Consequently, it functions as a connector between the fragmented land uses.

<figure><img src="image_72.png" /><figcaption>[fig.12] Four different spatial configurations and compositions of the built environment, agricultural land use and vegetation can be distinguished along former railway line 87 in Obigies, Celles, Ronse and Ellezelles. Source: elaborated by Sophie Leemans based on data from Geopunt Vlaanderen, Géoportail de la Wallonie, NGI/IGN Belgium, 2023</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_73.png" /></figure>

[fig.13] Plan-section analysis of transversal interaction between the former railway embankment of line 87 and the different spatial configurations in Obigies (upper left), Celles (upper right), Ronse (bottom left) and Ellezelles (bottom right). Source: elaborated by Sophie Leemans based on data from Geopunt Vlaanderen, Géoportail de la Wallonie, NGI/IGN Belgium, 2023

### Inverting the networks' logic

The plan-section analysis above showed that the former railway line 87 runs through different local conditions with their own spatial configurations of built environment, agriculture, and vegetation. This analysis revealed that in each of the different zooms, a new role as lifeline has been created: as a flooding barrier (in Obigies), as a corridor for biodiversity (in Celles), as a collective space for social interaction (in Ronse) and as a connector in a fragmented landscape (in Ellezelles). Further in-depth analysis of these zooms through sections confirms that railway line 87 has evolved from a transportation line (the railway tracks and embankment) with nodes (the train stations) to a network with a thickness and edges that enter into dialogue with their surroundings [fig.14]. These local conditions have altered the formerly monofunctional infrastructure through processes of water catchment, erosion, appropriation, retrofitting, rewilding and so on. What this seems to indicate is that the network's logic has thus been inverted.

The case of former railway 87 illustrates the potential of rethinking infrastructure in a plural, multifunctional way. This approach is highly needed, as the current urban questions force us to make connections between different infrastructure systems. We can no longer design mobility infrastructure e.g., for electric bikes without taking renewable energy production into account, set up
biodiversity projects without considering their relationship with water cycles, think of food production without addressing waste and so on. To find answers to the complex urban questions present in the dispersed territory, its future lifelines will have to address multiple challenges simultaneously, considering locality as an advantage and as a starting point. Therefore, this paper advocates for spatial projects that step away from pigeonholing and mono-functional infrastructure and rather stimulate inter- and transdisciplinary design of future infrastructure systems with collaborations between architecture, engineering, landscape, and planning.

<figure><img src="image_74.png" /><figcaption>[fig.14] Local cross-sections (100m) of the former railway embankment of line 87 and different spatial configurations in Obigies, Celles, Ronse and Ellezelles. Source: Sophie Leemans, 2023.</figcaption></figure>

## Conclusion

Dispersed territories are increasingly confronted with urgent collective challenges and complex urban questions. This paper started from the idea that lifelines i.e., infrastructure networks that are drivers of the urban condition in these territories, could be a way to rethink these territories. Over time, these lifelines have transformed in interaction with their socio-economic contexts. The extensive tram- and railway network in the EM is such an example, evolving from a tool to strengthen the identity of a new nation state and to stimulate economic development to playing a pivotal role in creating an urban condition in the dispersed territory. Today, this network is entering a new transition, which offers the opportunity to rethink the case of former railway line 87 as a prototype alternative to the traditional, monofunctional design approach of infrastructure. However, this also means that the current reinterpretation of former railway lines as long-distance cycle routes is inadequate as it is a new variation on the existing approach: rethinking mobility infrastructure into a new type of mobility infrastructure.

A transition is needed to design infrastructure in an integrated way, linking energy systems with water cycles, food production with mobility and so on. In this new design approach, it is crucial to design lifelines that enter into dialogue with the surrounding landscape, local conditions and most importantly, other infrastructure systems. Through the analysis of the case of former railway line 87, this paper has illustrated that the former standardised line with nodes can evolve towards a multi-layered lifeline with edges and dialogues, potentially integrating architecture, landscape, engineering, and planning in the design of a new lifeline transition, and thus a new dispersed territory.
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# Rethinking extractive landscapes in cross-border areas

*Chiara Caravello*

Lab. Ville Territoire Paysage, Unité de Recherche en Architecture, University of Liège and Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano

Rita Occhiuto (Supervisor University of Liège), Andrea Gritti (Supervisor Politecnico di Milano), Martina Barcelloni

Corte (Co-supervisor University of Liège)

Expected thesis defence: September, 2026

chiara.caravello@uliege.be

With the gradual cessation of the extractive industry in Western Europe, the 1990s saw the emergence of an awareness of the spatial and cultural values of abandoned mines and quarries. In the wake of the 'industrial heritage tourism', the 'mining tourism' arose, converting derelict extractive facilities into touristic and recreational attractions. In their attempt at economic regeneration, recycling projects for disused extractive plants have often neglected their relationship with landscape, comprising ecosystems and cultural networks pre-existing, contemporary and successive to mining and quarrying time. Adopting an architectural approach, the research explores the manufactured landscape resulting from the exploitation of underground resources, highlighting the spatial, cultural and ecological continuity between underground, sub-surface and surface. Hence, the 'extractive landscape' emerges as a constantly evolving manifestation of human-nature interactions.

## Introduction

Whereas extractive basins extend according to the natural distribution of underground geological layers, formed over millennia, landscapes at the surface are often approached from a fragmented perspective, based on relatively recent administrative and sectoral territorial subdivisions. The case of the ‘Three Countries Park’ cross-border partnership area, stretching between the so-called ‘MAHHL-cities’ (Maastricht, Aachen, Heerlen, Hasselt and Liège) at the core of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine (BE-NL-DE), is an extreme example of such parcelling out. Here, where economic and social development have been strongly driven by the extractive industry, former mines and quarries form nowadays an ‘extractive landscape’, comprising far-reaching invisible underground landscapes, whose spatial, cultural and ecological potential is still largely unexplored.

The short paper presents a first development of my PhD research, moving from previous studies conducted by Professor Rita Occhiuto (Occhiuto 2014; Occhiuto 2021) at the Lab. Ville Territorire Paysage, Unité de Recherche en Architecture at the University of Liège, further investigated within the COST Action ‘Underground Built Heritage as catalyser for Community Valorisation’ (Pace, Salvarani 2021; Martinez-Rodriguez, Pace 2022). The research proposal was developed between 2020 and 2022 through intense exchange sessions with Professor Occhiuto and Dr Anja Brüll, manager of the ‘Three Countries Park’ partnership.

The text is structured in three parts: the first provides a brief definition of the research terms and method; the second presents an overview on regeneration projects for extractive landscapes in the ‘Three Countries Park’; the last gives a preliminary closer view on three focus case studies, situated in the ‘Three Countries Park’ along the border between Belgium and the Netherlands.

## Brief definition of research terms and method

Spatial, cultural and ecological factors define landscape as a system of ongoing and continuous qualitative processes (Foxley 2010), overpassing administrative borders and functional fragmentation of a given territory. The imminent need to regenerate extractive landscapes, which implies the reconsideration of surface, sub-surface and underground space, is here regarded as an opportunity to foster cooperative and sustainable cross-border territorial management and development. The verb ‘to regenerate<fnref n="1" />’ is here adopted both in its economic meaning, i.e., to bring back to a previous condition of efficiency, and in its biological and material meaning, i.e., to reconstitute damaged parts of an organism or the original properties of a product worn down and impoverished by use and time (Garzanti linguistica 2023, translated by the author).

Talking about regeneration projects for extractive landscapes, the term ‘regeneration’ refers to the designer's ability of recognising in the landscape a living system, or palimpsest (Corboz 1983), of coexisting materials and meanings, from which to deduce the project in continuity with the ongoing

<footnote n="1">¹ Etymologically, the verb ‘to regenerate’ derives from the Latin composition of the prefix re-, with iterative value, and *generāre*, ‘to generate’, with the literal meaning of ‘generating again’ (Garzanti linguistics 2023).</footnote>
transformation processes. According to Bernard Lassus, any construction generates a new landscape, where the most indirect relationships are brought together through complementary relationships (Lassus 1981). Hence, the profound dimension of the landscape recalled by extractive landscapes sets the soil at the centre of these complementary relationships, i.e., of the interactions between man and nature over time (Occhiuto 2021). For this reason, working on extractive landscapes puts the designer in a tension between "pandering to the 'technological subjugation of Earth' in the name of its commercial exploitation" and "rejecting it in the name of an emerging 'ecological awareness'<fnref n="2" />"(Gritti 2020, translated by the author).

The research explores the spatial configuration of underground abandoned mines and quarries, investigating their creation, dismantling and reuse processes. From a first survey, it is possible to define these spaces as ‘underground landscapes’, featuring kilometre-long linear extensions of galleries, given by the composition of solids and voids, where surface and underground, outside and inside, are connected through natural and artificial elements, passages of light and darkness, of noise and silence. A variety of shapes and configurations define underground extractive landscapes based on different extracted materials and employed extraction techniques.

The fieldwork is carried out following a method in four steps: base-knowledge preparation, immersive observation, note-taking and reflective writing. To observe and understand the case studies in their context, the method consists in capturing sensory elements so as to compose one or more narratives, through photographs, video and sound recordings, sketches, and written notes through an analytical and graphic language. A retrospective reflection is then drawn to trace connections between the elements gathered in situ and the materials collected in the preparation step. Using a template-forms to systematize the information collected through qualitative fieldwork as well as through bibliographic and archival research, the study pursues two ambitions: mapping the available knowledge on a selected number of cases, considering the different languages and cultures involved as well as knowledge exchange dynamics; drawing up a cause-effect framework between the exploitation and use of the underground and the transformation of the surface landscape, simultaneously analysing the traces of extractive activity, secondary uses as well as territorial and landscape management and development projects.

## Extractive landscapes in the Three Countries Park

In the ‘Three Countries Park’ area, the research explores various regeneration projects for extractive landscapes in response to the sharp decline of the extractive activity, originating different kinds of extractive surface landscapes relating to different types of materials extracted in the underground (brown and black coal [fig. 1], zinc [fig. 2], lead, limestone [fig. 3], silex, gravel and others).

<figure><img src="image_75.png" /><figcaption>[fig.1] The Carl-Alex coal mining area in Baesweiler, Aachen (Germany) is now converted into the Carl-Alexander-Park, an attractive pole within the *Grünmetropole* route. © Dominik Ketz, 2020</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="2">² Gritti draws his consideration by referring to Karin Wilhelm's words in the chapter 'The earth, a good domicile. Ambivalences of the modern city' in: Klingan, K., Gust, K. (Eds.), *A Utopia of Modernity--Zlin: Revisiting the Functional City of Bata*. Jovis, Berlin, pp. 225-237.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_76.png" /></figure>

[fig.2] Specimens of *Viola Calaminaria* in Kelmis (BE), a rare and protected flower species that flourishes in sites polluted by fine dust deposited by zinc mining processes. © Anja Brüll, 2022

<figure><img src="image_77.png" /></figure>

[fig.3] Characteristic building in the centre of Valkenburg in South Limburg (NL) built with local limestone extracted from an underground quarry in the region © Chiara Caravello, 2022

Considering the time span since the establishment of the 'Three Countries Park' cooperation in 2001, the most relevant<fnref n="3" /> architectural and landscape regeneration projects carried out in this cross-border area have been: the *Sint-Pietersberg* project (2003); the Interreg project *Industrielle folgelandschaft* (2005-2008), which gave light to two projects: *Grünmetropole*, a masterplan commissioned to the landscape studio Agence Ter (2008), and *Pays des Terrils* (2008); the *Grensmaas* consortium of industries (2006); the *IBA Parkstad* (2013-2022); the *Jaar van de Mijnen* (2015) and *Mijnerfgoed* (2015) initiatives; and the People-to-People project 'Dear landscape' (2017-2019), followed by the project 'Subterranea' (2022) commissioned by the 'Three Countries Park' to the cartopological research practice 'Dear Hunter'. In addition to these projects, consideration may be given to the active (tourism) entrepreneurs' cooperative *Land van Kalk* and the feasibility study conducted by various stakeholders from Flemish Riemst (BE) and Dutch South Limburg (NL) for the proposal of a UNESCO world heritage site, further resized to a UNESCO geopark, linked to the limestone landscape.

Particularly impactful, the *Grünmetropole* masterplan by Agence Ter [fig. 4] proposed a regeneration project based on a “metropolisation through landscape” concept (Varcin & Helms 2011) which reinterpreted the extractive landscape as a unifying agency to strengthen cross-border identity and cooperation.

<footnote n="3">³ According to the author's research so far.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_78.png" /></figure>

[fig.4] Grünmetropole Masterplan © Prof. Henri Bava, Agence Ter + Prof. Alex Wall, Prof. Stephen Craig, Dipl. Ing. Erik Behrens, 2008

Yet, the project mainly targeted tourist-recreational objectives, focusing on the definition of cross-border slow mobility paths to connect coal mining landmarks above ground. Moreover, it must be pointed out that, while the end of the Interreg *Industrielle Folgelandschaft* funding lead to a successful and still active project such as '*Grünmetropole*', the burden of such a large cross-border scale was not borne as fruitfully by the '*Pays de Terrils*' project, whose traces today are more difficult to be tracked across the border.

**Closer view on three focus case-studies**

For a number of reasons, among which a clear architectural value given by the liveable dimension of these spaces, I have chosen to focus my in-depth fieldwork on former limestone quarries, whose accessibility allow me to apply the above-described research method. The text introduces three cross-border quarries: '*NATO-berg*', located in the *Cannerberg*, across Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands, with access between the Flemish village of Kanne (Riemst) and the Dutch city of Maastricht; '*Groeve de Keel*' across Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands, with access along the Albert Canal between the Flemish villages of Vroenhoven and Kanne (Riemst); '*Réseau de Caster*' across Walloon and Flemish Belgium and the Netherlands, with main access above the small village of Petit-Lanaye (Visé) in Wallonia, along the eastern slope of the *Montagne Saint-Pierre*, between the *Meuse* and *Geer* valleys<fnref n="4" />.

The reason why these three quarries were chosen out of many others mainly depends on two factors: the first is that they are either physically below the national border (*Réseau de Caster* and *Groeve de Keel*) or holder of an internationally strategic position (*NATO-berg*); the second is that they include a broad spectrum, perhaps the broadest possible in the 'Three Countries Park' area, of both limestone extraction techniques and after-quarrying uses. Indeed, secondary uses of the quarries<fnref n="5" /> include “burials, church, mushrooms, cardoon and chicory's cultivation, habitation, illegal alcohol distilleries, nature reserve, shelters, storage of field products, touristic tours and war industries” (Orbons 2017, p.38).

The fieldwork reveals how these three quarries relate differently to the surface, not only as a consequence of quarrying, but also (maybe above all) depending on their secondary uses. Through preliminary considerations, we can observe that the access points to the *NATO-berg* have a gate-like appearance, as a series of secure entrances with a guard post, while the access to the *Groeve de Keel* and the *Réseau de Caster* are more blended into the landscape, not so much aesthetically as for the fact that, while preventing human access, they allow the passage as much of biodiversity, such as bats and insects, as of light and air, defining around them an intermediate space between inside and

<footnote n="4">⁴ All names in italics, written here in French, have a corresponding name in Dutch. In particular: *Cannerberg* (FR)/*Kannerberg* (NL); *Réseau de Caster* (FR)/*Groeve Caestert* (NL); *Montagne Saint-Pierre* (FR)/*Sint-Pietersberg* (NL); *Meuse* (FR)/*Maas* (NL); *Geer* (FR)/*Jeker* (NL).</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Referring, according to Orbons, to underground quarries in the so-called *Mergelland* area (Orbons 2017, p. 21).</footnote>
outside. In all three cases, the quarries are located on a slope<fnref n="6" /> and, therefore, horizontally accessible<fnref n="7" />, albeit at different heights (the lowest is the *Groeve de Keel* and the highest is the *Réseau de Caster*).

The *NATO-berg* is part of the *Cannerberg*<fnref n="8" />, which represents the western border of the *Geer* valley. Various quarries have been excavated into this hill, mainly to extract limestone blocks for the construction sector. According to Notermans, “we know that there was already a system of galleries under *Cannerberg* in the 17th century” and “we can assume that limestone was no longer extracted from the first half of the 20th century” (Notermans 2021, translated by the author). The strategic location and extension of the *Cannerberg* led to one of its limestone quarries<fnref n="9" /> being chosen as NATO's secret military headquarters, operative “from 1954 until the end of 1992” (Notermans 2021) as an important communication centre, where military air defence and offensive operations were coordinated (Het Limburgs Landschap 2023). After the closure of the military quarter, asbestos fibres were found on site, and remediation took until 2013, when the *Stichting Het Limburgs Landschap* took over the complex, organizing since then guided tours led by enthusiastic volunteers (Notermans 2021).

On the other side of the same hill, excavated on five levels (Walschot 2010), the *Groeve de Keel* was exploited by employing a wide variety of techniques for the extraction of limestone blocks and powder, as well as flint, between approximately 1750 and 1950 (Walschot 2010, p.16). In fact, according to Walschot, despite its moderate size, the *Groeve de Keel* is the only quarry where all kinds of limestone extraction techniques can be seen (Walschot 2010, p. 7). Traces of various secondary uses can be seen in the quarry, which functioned as a shelter during the wars, and was further used “until 1962 as a mushroom farm and clandestine alcohol stockyard, later as a hiding place for stolen expensive cars, and more recently on several occasions as a house party hall” (Walschot 2010, p. 7, translated by the author). Similarly, the *Réseau de Caster* is the result of numerous quarrying phases since the 13th century (Silvertant 2010, p.23) until last century, allowing for the observation of numerous extraction techniques for blocks and limestone powder (Amendt et al. 2010). Nowadays both the *Groeve de Keel* and the *Réseau de Caster*, as many others, are nature reserves. Indeed, in addition to their great historical, geological, landscape and cultural, these quarries have “exceptional chiropterological interest” (Lamotte 2005). The *NATO-berg* is also located in a ‘Natura2000’ area, the ‘*Sint Pietersberg & Jekerdal*’ established in 1998 (Natura 2000 viewer) and is part of the nature reserve ‘*Cannerbos en NAVO-hoofdkwartier*’ owned and managed by *Het Limburgs Landschap* (Het Limburgs Landschap).

## Conclusion

This preliminary comparison highlights at least two fragility factors affecting regeneration projects for extractive landscapes in cross-border areas. The first factor is the unequal cross-border distribution of founds and knowledge dissemination, responsible for an uneven project efficiency at the local level, with strong repercussions on long-term territorial development (see the different developments of the Interreg project *Industrielle Folgelandschaft*); the second is the so far limited nature of the regeneration projects in exploring and implying the landscape’s vertical relationships between surface, sub-surface and underground. In fact, while for example the *Grünmetropole* concept is based on the relationship between the underground coal layer and the extractive industry development in the northern-central area of the Three Countries Park (from North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany to Flemish Region of Belgium via the Netherlands) its relationship with the underground remains limited to the distribution area of the raw material.

This approach may have been influenced by the recurring understanding on territorial developments as a stratification of functions and structures distributed on a flat horizontal surface. In fact, if the territory's functionality is efficiently described by this narrative medium, what results sacrificed in this generalisation is its complexity (Secchi & Voltini 2020). The problem does not lie so much in the actual use of layers as in their superficial understanding, in the reduction of these to

<footnote n="6">⁶ In the case of the *Groeve de Keel*, the entrance is not located along a natural slope, but on the vertical rock wall resulting from the shearing of the rock in the area between the Flemish villages of Vroenhoven and Kanne (Riemst, BE) carried out for the construction of the Albert Canal.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ Although it can be imagined that the quarries had several entrances throughout time (including probably shafts and stairs), the author is only familiar with currently official access.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ The Dutch suffix ‘-berg’ indicates the presence of a hill.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ In particular, the *NATO-berg* was located in a quarry previously known as *Bosberg*.</footnote>
simplified strata denying the multi-directional continuity of landscape. In fact, if the superposition of layers is represented as a vertical addition, each single layer is being depicted on a horizontal plan. Yet a systemic understanding of the territory necessarily involves an interpretative synthesis of both horizontal and vertical landscape's continuity elements.

Talking about extractive landscapes, the territory's multi-directional continuity is self-evident. In fact, if the horizontal strata point out the contrast between the fragmentation of the territory on the surface (administrative and property borders, functional zoning, etc.) and the continuity in the underground (watercourses, biodiversity, geological strata, etc.), the vertical strata highlight the spatial, cultural and ecological relations, finally acknowledging a connecting dimension between the ground as a whole (surface, sub-surface and underground) and the sky (air, water and their cycles).

Today, particularly in the aftermath of the energy crisis related to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, a possible comeback of the extractive industry in Europe is being discussed<fnref n="10" />. In this sense, the current crisis has certainly increased our awareness of the fact that the need to downsize the extractive industry cannot be solved in its exportation elsewhere. What we need is a cultural change in our approach to the ground a multi-directional system, considering all its dimensions as allies in designing cooperative and sustainable territorial and landscape (regeneration) projects.

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<footnote n="10">¹⁰ In several cases, rather than ‘reactivation’, it is a matter of ‘continuation’, where for years attempts have been made to speed up the definitive closure of mines and quarries.</footnote>
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I.c
Productive territories: circularity and
conflicts

*Manufacturing spaces in the Marais (Lille) and Heyvaert (Brussels) districts: hybridization and conflicts* (p.120)

Scutari Ana, Ulille (FR)

*The Walloon industrial sillon: a figure of 21stcentury* (p.129)

Calò Alessia, UCLouvain (BE)

*Designing (with) soil in circular built environment transformations* (p.136)

Timmers Charlotte, KULeuven (BE)

*Dalmine: From Company Town to Hybridized Productive Habitat* (p.147)

Almeida Santos Anna Karla, EPFLausanne (CH)
# Manufacturing spaces in the Marais (Lille) and Heyvaert (Brussels) districts: hybridization and conflicts

Ana Scutari

Territoires Villes Environnement & Société, (TVES), Université de Lille / Laboratory on Landscape, Urbanism, Infrastructures and Ecologies (LoUIsE), Université Libre de Bruxelles

Annette Groux, Geoffrey Grulois, Didier Paris

Expected thesis defence: October, 2024

ana.scutari@univ-lille.fr

The manufacturing production areas within metropolitan territories are the object of the recomposition of geographical distribution of industry and the objective of public authorities to reintroduce or maintain manufacturing production within urban environments. This reasoning is in line with the aspirations of the multifunctional city and the dense city, which have been institutionalized for several years, particularly through the limitation of soil artificialization or sealing in France and Belgium. Urban public policies in Lille and Brussels participate directly in local economic development and in the production of economic space, through public spatial action and planning on a local scale, as reflected in their intervention on land and real estate. The integration of industrial activities within the metropolitan territories reveals the conflict inherent in the relationship between these activities and the city. It is materialized by a set of conflicts and by the effect of competition between the different urban functions, which are the expression of the encounter between antinomic uses, interests and values about the metropolitan space.

This article focuses on two case studies and examines the conflicts that arise within these sites. The first case concerns the rivalry between the Parc de la Sennette project and the productive activities on the D'Ieteren site in Heyvaert, which provides an insight into the conflicts inherent in the contradictory injunctions of urban planning and their impact on land resources. The second case study concerns the Refinal site in Lomme, and highlights the complexity of the social construction of the acceptability of pollution and nuisances, and the associated urban public policies. It also examines the concept of land ownership as an institution. In this sense, we are interested in the different forms of conflicts inherent to this hybridization of urban morphology and social forms and their consideration in the framework of urban planning tools.

## Introduction

The strategic and regulatory planning documents of both the Brussels-Capital Region and the European Metropolis of Lille emphasize the objective of developing and preserving industrial activities on their territories. However, the eviction of manufacturing activities from urban fabrics has been a feature of tensions and conflicts between residential areas and industrial zones since the 19th century. These conflicts stem mainly from the pollution and nuisance generated by industrial activities (Massard-Guilbaud 1999; Barles et al. 2009; Le Roux 2009, 2014; Fressoz et al. 2014; Bécot 2019; Letté and Le Roux 2019). Also, competition between different urban functions leads to urban development oriented towards the construction of housing and office space, with real estate investors particularly interested in these activities deemed more profitable (Strale 2017).

This paper is part of a more general thesis on how urban public policy considers the conflicts that drive the integration of manufacturing spaces within the metropolitan territories. More specifically, the question at issue is the role played by the conflictual nature of manufacturing spaces in their location and the spatial forms they generate. In this context, how do urban public policies consider the conflicts inherent in urban functions and industrial spillover ? We will begin by highlighting the inherent conflictual nature of manufacturing spaces within metropolitan areas, then turn to two case studies and the conflicts that emerge within them. The case of the competition between the Sennette park project and manufacturing activities on the D'Ieteren site in Heyvaert provides an insight into the conflicts inherent in the contradictory injunctions of urban planning, and their crystallization in land resources. The Refinal site, in Lomme, illustrates the complexity of the social construction of the acceptability of pollution and nuisances, of pollution management policies, and questions the concept of land ownership as an institution. These two contrasting case studies are part of the logic of “monograph comparisons” or “small N comparisons” (Pinson 2019). Thus, the fields are understood through their specificities and not through the comparison of variables (Ragin 2014). They aim to highlight the multiplicity and complexity of relationships and representations vis-à-vis land ownership and urban competition articulated in manufacturing spaces.
In this study, we adopt the mapping method, which aims to examine associations and oppositions in collective situations, drawing on actor-network theory and using ethnographic and semiotic approaches (Venturini and Munk 2021; Latour 2007). The aim is to study the cumulative interactions characteristic of the construction process in manufacturing spaces, to understand how actions carry collective meaning and highlight the social and political character of decisions taken in the context of urban planning. Our methodology aims to understand and articulate the interpretations and statements of actors - both human and non-human (Latour 2007) - and the network that emerges from their interactions. Analysis of this heterogeneity highlights the changing and unstable nature of the social, technical, natural and aesthetic framework (Yaneva 2016). Semi-structured interviews are combined and cross-referenced with other qualitative data collection methods, specifically a study of urban planning documents, which aims to collect and examine written documents and other forms of material trace created in the situation under study (Hodder 2003). These documents are apprehended through their discursive and regulatory dimensions, and through their role as “material mediations” (Söderström 2001) of the choices made.

## Urban Conflicts and Conflictuality in the Urban Planning of Manufacturing Areas

The multiplicity and proximity of uses make space conflictual. Thus, because of its relational character, the production of space as a “specific configuration of coexistence” (Ledrut 1976) is the result of contradictions and tensions relating to the appropriation of space and the definition of use values and quality of life (Harvey 1976). Thus, in the case of manufacturing areas, conflicts arise from the opposition between the living environment and environmental protection, on the one hand, and the “overflow” caused by industrial pollution and nuisance, on the other. In this sense, urban conflict emerges with the processes of production, management and use of the “built” urban environment (Harvey 1976), characterized by collective use or concerned by the interventions of public authorities. Thus, the conflictual dimension of these structures results from their collective character, in terms of ownership, management or use, and from the externalities due to private decisions regarding their use (Fainstein and DeFilippis 2016). This conflict over space is the result of a double dynamic of inclusion and exclusion of uses and functions operated by urban planning (Mazza 2009; Pacchi and Pasqui 2015), also to be compared with the concept of “invasion” developed by (McKenzie 2009).

The object of conflict inherent in urban planning is particularly characterized by its political nature and by the balance of power it generates through its decision-making character (Davidoff, Reiner, 1962, 109). In the context of decentralization and participatory democracy, i.e. “the increasing empowerment of subsystems in society” (Le Galès 1995), urban planning integrates the consideration of conflicts through the implementation of negotiation tools aimed at elaborating compromises (Castells 1969). The concurrent nature of urban space, as a “sedimented product of multiple intentionalities”, is at the origin of the “composition effect” (Grafmeyer and Authier 2020), a process that is rooted in time and space, notably through the dynamics of urban segregation - whether undergone or chosen. Recurrently, conflict is apprehended through its visible manifestation, concretized by a protest action, a situation (Melé 2013) or an event (Gualini 2015). According to Mössner & Renau (2014), this reduction of conflictuality to protest contributes to the invisibilization of conflict within a logic of idealizing consensus. A more encompassing reading of the concept of conflict, based specifically on the consideration of positions and words, lets us apprehend conflicts that have not yet acquired an organized form (Bulle and Tarragoni 2021). Conflict is thus observed through these different forms of opposition, antagonism and competition, based on distinct logic (D’Alessandro 2013).

## Heyvaert District: Balancing between Urban Park and Productive Activities

### A district of flows

The Parc de la Sennette project runs through the Heyvaert District, in the municipalities of Anderlecht and Molenbeek. This neighborhood is marked by the presence of the Canal, a historic industrial axis that constitutes both a physical and symbolic boundary (Rosenfeld 2015), reflecting the socio-economic inequalities between the western and eastern territories of the Brussels region. The neighborhood's economic activity is historically marked by the presence of textile activities,
slaughterhouses and the car trade (Claudel and Scohier 2014). In this context of ex-urbanization of activities linked to the wholesale meat trade (De Caluwé 2013; Rosenfeld 2015), from the 1990s onwards, the abandoned warehouses were gradually taken over by activities linked to the export trade of used cars from Europe to West Africa, leading to a concentration of ancillary activities and services, according to the logic of proximity.

It's a neighborhood with a high flow of people, which means intensive use of public roads. The importance of these flows in the district also concerns people, as it is a working-class district characterized by a marked diversity of origins and nationalities. For several decades, it has played an essential role in welcoming the poorest and migrants, against the backdrop of an increasingly tense regional real estate market (Chabrol and Rozenholc 2015). The area is currently facing accelerating urban transformations, particularly in inner-city neighborhoods, with the multiplication of planning tools, major urban projects and renovation strategies. These transformations are likely to induce gentrification dynamics (Sacco 2010; Van Criekingen 2002, 2006) and the eviction of productive activities as residential development proceeds (Casabella and Bouillot 2018).

*Competing functions and contradictory injunctions: between calming public spaces and economic dynamism*

The Parc de la Sennette project represents a green promenade of over one kilometer long, in a neighborhood with a dense morphology and little green space. Its aim is to establish a landscape continuity between the Parc de la Rosée, the Porte de Ninove and the Liverpool plain, highlighting the importance of making the historic course of the Senne de Ransfort visible in the urban space. In this way, the park's layout crosses the blocks largely occupied by garage activities, and the specific D'Ieteren plot which was historically dedicated to wheel manufacturing and car assembly activities since the early 19th century. After housing car dealership activities and a mechanical workshop until 2020, when these activities were relocated, the site is now temporarily occupied by Circularium. This 20,000-square-meter space is being redeveloped by the 51N4E office, to support craft activities, workshops linked to the circular economy and events, in an incubator logic (Carlier et al. 2021).

The development of a regional park project along the Sennette route has been envisaged for several Contrats de quartier, such as Chimiste, de la Rosée and Compas. However, it has taken some time to materialize, due to the inherent complexity of an urban fabric compartmentalized by multiple landowners. Today, the park's layout is part of the vision and allocations of the Heyvaert Master Development Plan (PAD), while its operational component is part of the “Heyvaert-Poincaré” Urban Renewal Contract (CRU). This project raises the question of competition between different functions and highlights the contradictory injunctions expressed within the area, particularly about the objectives of developing green spaces, economic activities and housing. Furthermore, there are oppositions between different forms of economic activity, specifically between “old activities” such as motor trade and “new productive activities” such as crafts or micro-production, which are in line with the regional logic and strategy focused on attractiveness and favoring economic activities linked to the circular economy, local production or sustainable development (Orban et al. 2021).

Motor trade activities are perceived as a source of a nuisance, particularly according to some residents (Scohier 2018). They are seen as a problem in need of resolution by institutions (Rosenfeld and Van Criekingen 2015; Sacco 2015), which are putting in place a range of legal and urban planning tools aimed at framing and limiting this activity. In this respect, the park project seeks both to de-densify the blocks occupied by this activity and to calm the public space, widely invested by multiple flows, as a consensus-building entity. This objective can be in the broader context of the evolution of landscape representation in Brussels planning (Hubaut 2021), characterized by a shift towards a vision incorporating references to the natural environment and ecosystems. This shift is reflected in the emergence of new landscape approaches manifested in linear and networked structures, where the landscape is explicitly associated with watercourses and valleys. In the context of the PAD, the Compas-Heyvaert-Liverpool-Mons block aims to ensure continuity between the Parc de la Sennette and the Liverpool plain, and to open up the D'Ieteren site. The project focuses on the valley floor and aims to re-establish contact with the soil that has been artificially altered, by making the old course of the Sennette visible, with the aim of recovering a certain symbolism linked to this natural environment. It translates representations of a double
imaginary: that of “slowness” (Hubaut 2021; Pelgrims 2018) and that of the “link” (Hubaut 2021; Scherrer 2004) attributed to the landscape.

However, the PAD also aims to maintain and integrate productive activities within the neighborhood. The productive and active edge is a new tool that mainly concerns first floor spaces and aims to encourage the coexistence of different functions while preserving areas specifically reserved for economic activities and community facilities. However, the PAD prescriptions restrict the depth of these spaces to just 30 meters, which is very limited to encourage the development of this activity. Consequently, some stakeholders point to the risk that these spaces will not attract the desired economic activities and will remain empty, or that they will host other activities less beneficial to the neighborhood. Indeed, the PAD also allows the development of other functions such as offices or hotels, which are much more profitable for developers, perpetuating competition between urban functions.

## Land Conflict: Balancing Planning and Intervention Scale

The conflict of functions is reflected in a competition for land that crystallizes the rivalries for space, and the strategic and speculative logic implemented by the various players. Despite the lack of solutions for relocating activities as part of the expropriations to build the park (Casabella and Bouillot 2018), the owners of the garages located on the Liverpool-Mégissiers urban block have adopted the logic of the property developers and negotiated the sale of their land. However, tensions between public and private players over land ownership are more marked in the case of the plot belonging to D'Ieteren Immo. This subsidiary prefers to retain ownership of the land and the economic function of the site in the short term. The conflict is based on a strategy based on anticipating the evolution of externalities, in conjunction with the emergence of new positive externalities integrated into the common good (Hardt and Negri 2011) of the district. These new externalities include the presence of green spaces, the emergence of new types of residential spaces and the development of new economic activities. These elements play an essential role in the long-term valuation of real estate and land within urban areas, enabling their profitability to be maximized. This type of temporary occupation could be described as “offensive” (Andres 2013), the aim of which is to enhance the value of the site while guaranteeing the legacy of temporary uses, while retaining control of the space. The spaces proposed for temporary occupation of Circularium remain inaccessible to local initiatives and players, and the activity present has few local roots. 51N4E's plan for the organization of the spaces is in line with this same logic of closure and maintaining the spatiality of the plot.

The park project and the inherent competition raise questions about the ownership of this land. The planning documents, specifically the PAD and the CRU, define in part the transformations of the program and the spatial aspect, and the accessibility of the site. However, the manager and ownership of the site have yet to be defined. Ownership, as a concept and an institution (Alexander et al. 2009), influences urban planning and development practices. As a subjective entity, embodied notably in representations and actions, ownership and its enactment reflects land conflicts and oppositions relating to the regulation of land use (Leffers 2018). In this context, the classification of part of a plot as a green space zone implies responsibilities and constraints regarding the use and development of this zone. Specifically, the public authorities are considering the possibility of choosing a developer to sell the land, with the aim of avoiding the development and maintenance charges associated with ownership and defined by planning documents.

However, the limitations imposed on private property in planning documents give rise to a dual perception on the part of property developers. On the one hand, they are foreseeable 'obstacles' that have been known about for several years and that needs to be overcome as part of the neighborhood regeneration project. On the other hand, they are also seen as an opportunity to take advantage of the land (Leffers 2018). It should be emphasized that the urban planning decision-making process, involving multiple actors and ideas, constitutes a dynamic political and strategic action space (Lowndes and Roberts 2013), in which property developers play a key role. In this context, it is important to note the influence they exert on trade-offs and decisions related to planning documents. In the case of the D'Ieteren site, programming remains very flexible and aims to mitigate opposition to the park project.

h
# Refinal plant: industrial spillover and land ownership

## At the crossroads of residential and industrial fabrics

The foundry, established in 1946 and acquired in 1992 by Refinal (Derichebourg Group), specializes in melting aluminum scrap. It covers an area of around 4 hectares, on the north bank of the Canal de la Deûle, between the municipalities of Lomme and Sequedin. The facility is classified as an Installation Classée pour la Protection de l'Environnement (ICPE). It is located in the heart of a dense urban fabric, very close to the first residential areas and close to many other industrial sites along the Canal, specializing in metallurgy and recycling. To the south, on the other side of the River Deûle, lies the Produits Chimiques de Loos plant, a SEVESO site subject to a Technological Risk Prevention Plan (PPRT), and the A25 motorway. Historically, this has been an industrial district, with a strong presence of the textile industry, metal and metallurgical industries, electrical and electronic construction industries and workshops, and chemical industries established along the banks of the Deûle. Because of these industrial developments, the district also saw the construction of facilities and housing for workers, by the Lomme plan drawn up in 1934. However, against a backdrop of deindustrialization that began in the 1980s, the district set about rebuilding its economic weight and its development, notably through the project to convert the former Leblanc spinning mill into the Euratechnologies center of excellence (Collectif Degeyter 2017) and representations of the creative city (Ambrosino and Guillon 2010).

This working-class district, close to the priority district of the West Sector of Lille and the Bois-Blanc district, is the subject of renewal projects, particularly following the Rives de la Haute Deûle project. Besides the significant presence of production and logistics activities, this urban area is characterized by a specific interconnection between old factories and historic residential areas. A notable feature is the configuration of the banks of the Deûle, where the port frontage is made up of land belonging to establishments with direct links to the waterway.

## Environmental Conflicts and Industrial Spillovers

Refinal Industries operate on a site that is subject to regulations governing facilities classified for environmental protection. By a prefectural decree dated 02/04/1999, the company is authorized to increase production at its aluminum refining plant and to continue to operate a platform dedicated to the recovery of ferrous and non-ferrous metals. The residents, grouped together in a collective whose aim is to raise awareness of the environmental problems associated with this site, establish a link between the appearance of nuisances and this increase in production. They highlighted various types of pollution and disturbance associated with the site's activity, particularly in terms of air and soil quality, noise pollution and nuisance caused by heavy goods traffic. With the support of the municipalities of Lomme and Lille, the residents could obtain the necessary procedures to request environmental studies aimed at quantifying the nuisance and pollution generated by this industrial facility. As a result, Lomme town council and the prefecture have demanded that a study be carried out over a twelve-month period, starting in June 2020. However, the results of the environmental studies are insufficient to provide conclusive answers due to the complexity of the situation. Indeed, some indicators studied, such as fine dust in the air, show values that are within the established regulatory limits, which could suggest compliance with these specific aspects. However, for other indicators, such as dust falling on the ground or the presence of aluminum in the air, it should be noted that there are no clearly established standards or reference thresholds.

Moreover, in the case of technical studies of pollution and policies for managing industrial pollution and spills, the limits of this approach are due specifically to the logic of relating harmful effects to factors that are almost impossible to isolate in the complex system of industrial production (Beck 2001). Another problem is the lack of synchronization between environmental assessment and studies on the one hand, and action on the other. The measures and tools put in place to mitigate environmental impacts and pollution are confronted with the fact that they are incomplete, because they are part of a logic that aims to maximize the prevention of the most significant damage (Douglas and Wildavsky 1983; Douglas Mary et al. 2001). Values and uncertainties are fundamental components of any acceptable risk problem. Consequently, it is impossible to find totally value-neutral processes for choosing between different risk alternatives.
The search for an 'objective' method is doomed to failure and risks obscuring from researchers the value-laden assumptions they make (Fischhoff et al. 1980).

The heterogeneity of representations of pollution and nuisance between different social groups is linked, specifically, to the perception of the spatial environment, the role of social position and practices within institutions (Douglas and Wildavsky 1983). The risk management process is marked by a conflictual dimension, as it seeks to reconcile prevention and safety against industrial accidents, on the one hand, and economic or urban development on the other. Depending on the era and the situation, compromises are made on different bases and the hierarchy of interests evolves (Bonnaud and Martinais 2005). The conflictual dimension is characteristic of risk management procedures and the drafting of prevention documents, but it can also manifest itself during the environmental studies phase - which results from the asymmetry and power relationships between the various stakeholders and institutions (Frère et al. 2017; Frère and Zwarterook 2016), and a lack of consultation (Grembo et al. 2013).

This conflictual nature emerges specifically in the context of contradictory visions between the various institutions, which in France is part of a context of hierarchies and complex legal relationships between the various public entities, resulting from decentralized town planning, the development of the inter-municipality and the integration of sustainable development into all public policies. While the DREAL presents the results of studies as inconclusive to assert that the plant exceeds environmental standards, some local authorities build their arguments not on regulatory standards, but rather on representations of the acceptability of nuisances about visions of quality of life: "If you compare the environment of Refinal with a traditional town center, you can see that it is impacted"<fnref n="1" />, emphasizes the mayor of Lomme.

## Land Conflict: Representations and Property

The company purchased the adjacent land, originally owned by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), for €7.6 million. The land extends over a long strip of 4 hectares, parallel to the river Deûle, and is located between the communes of Lomme and Sequedin. Following the sale of the land, conflicts of interest arose, particularly between Lomme town council and the company. Against this backdrop, the municipality applied to Métropole Européenne de Lille (MEL) to exercise its right of pre-emption over the area. However, this request was rejected, leading to a disagreement between the parties concerned. At the municipal level, this land is considered to be a key strategic location for opening up the Marais District. More specifically, the municipality of Lomme had planned to extend the industrial boulevard across this land, thereby creating a link between Sequedin and Avenue Hegel, while facilitating the passage of a future high service-level bus line from EuraTechnologies. This logic of connection is also emphasized on a metropolitan scale, with the aim of strengthening the interconnections between the various districts and creating links between the waterway and the metropolitan center. This area, which borders on the banks of the Canal, is therefore the focus of various interests and ambitions, particularly on the part of the MEL through the studies carried out in this zone, with the aim of achieving a "harmonious sharing of the Deûle" (Bariol and Decoupigny 2022). Thus, the transformations promoted by urban projects and programs aimed at creating an interface between the city and the port, particularly by integrating the development of residential and service functions, are accompanied by conflicts and competition between the different interests (Mazy 2014).

Local authorities have used regulatory tools, specifically environmental regulations, and legal tools such as the right of pre-emption, to deal with these various conflicting issues. Thus, in this conflict, we can observe the emergence of legal and regulatory approaches. Economic conflicts over land use tend to be transformed into legal disputes, incorporating both the economic contradictions of exclusion and expansion, and the link between the legal and social relations of ownership and the socio-economic relations of production (Plotkin 2009). Beyond legal considerations, the idea of property also encompasses a moral representation of the meaning of property rights and what they are intended to protect (Alexander et al. 2009). As such, it can be the impetus for political action to challenge or change the legal framework (Freyfogle 2010). Communities have therefore sought to implement "regulatory disruption" (Rose 2000), with the aim of bringing about changes to property

<footnote n="1">¹ La Voix du Nord. 19 mai 2023. « Les premiers relevés autour de Refinal Industries ont Parlé »</footnote>
rights, from an environmental perspective. Given that the local authorities were largely involved in the decision to carry out environmental studies to highlight the pollution generated by the site, they sought to limit the company's rights both to extend its activities and the site. The company's industrial excesses call into question the nature of ownership of the site, because although property rights are limited to a plot of land, this is not isolated and forms part of a territory giving access to other collectively shared resources. In other words, ownership of a piece of land also confers access to resources such as air, water and wildlife, which can normally cross property boundaries held by several owners.

## Conclusion

The manufacturing areas in Lille and Brussels are subject to a context of competition between the different urban functions determined by the logic of contradictory players. This takes the form of a series of conflicts relating to planning, the environment or uses, and the effect of competition between the different urban functions, which are the expression of the meeting of antagonistic interests for access to resources, and specifically to spatial resources. In the context of this thesis, this analysis is intended to be informed by the study of the role and approaches of public policy in addressing the conflicts inherent in urban functions and the spillover effects of industry. Public policies and urban planning are directly involved in the production of economic spaces, particularly about their decision-making dimension (Davidoff and Reiner 1962; Pacchi and Pasqui 2015)', through their intervention in the land and real estate. The link between the various forms of conflict, particularly those relating to the nuisance and pollution and those relating to land resources, contributes to the dynamics of exclusion from production uses and functions.

The example of the conflicts between the Sennette park project and the production activities on the D'Ieteren site in Heyvaert highlights the conflicts resulting from the contradictory imperatives of urban planning and their impact on the land. Similarly, the study of the Refinal site in Lomme reveals the complexity inherent in the social construction of the acceptability of pollution and nuisances, and the policies for managing these issues. At the same time, these case studies give rise to in-depth reflection on the concept of land ownership as an institution.

The question of land ownership, which is common to both case studies, is approached as a subjective entity, materializing through the representations and actions of the actors involved. Land ownership is a central element that reflects land conflicts and oppositions linked to the regulation of land use. The limitations imposed on private property in planning documents are perceived as both obstacles and opportunities by property developers, who play a key role in the urban planning decision-making process. It should also be emphasized that the physical boundaries of ownership of manufacturing spaces are part of a vast entity made up of the surrounding territories and the resources that surround them. Industrial spillovers highlight the fact that the environmental impacts and nuisances generated by productive activities are not confined to the boundaries of properties. On the contrary, they often affect collectively shared resources that cross property boundaries.

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# The Walloon industrial axis: a figure of the 21st century

*Alessia Calò*

Affiliation: UCLouvain

Supervisors: Prof. Chiara Cavalieri, Prof. Paola Viganò

Expected thesis defense: December 2026

alessia.calo@uclouvain.be

The Walloon industrial axis, located at the heart of Western Europe, along the Sambre-Meuse and Haine Valley, is a spatial territorial entity that spans across the provinces of Hainaut, Namur, and Liège in Belgium. With its rich industrial heritage and diverse landscapes, this territory has undergone significant transformations throughout history. However, similar to other post-extraction territories, the Walloon industrial axis continues to be perceived negatively with a radical image from an external perspective. The Wallonia region requires a fresh narrative and, consequently, a renewed representation. In the 21st century, it is poised to become more than just a historical and cultural hub. It has the potential to emerge as a prominent territorial figure with its own distinct identity, capable of addressing contemporary urban challenges and play a pivotal role in shaping the future of urban planning and design in Belgium.

After a brief introduction, this paper will present a preliminary approach (three urban spatial figures) and propose some action research (case studies, exploration of the border, analysis of regional planning tools).

## Introduction: the ‘tired heroes of the Industrial Revolution’<fnref n="1" />

In the European space, a new ‘geography of oblivion’ is emerging. Territories of extraction and deindustrialization such as the Walloon industrial axis, in Belgium, the mining area of Nord-Pas-de-Calais in France, the Ruhr Valley in Germany, are part of this geography. However, these territories are critical to address growing challenges such as social cohesion, inequalities, and redistribution of wealth.

This research focuses on the Sambre-Meuse and Haine Valley, in Belgium, a former coal mining territory in the middle of Europe. In the 19th century, this axis was a place of attraction and enormous wealth, first for coal mining, afterwards for glass and steel production [fig. 1].

<figure><img src="image_79.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 1] An attractive European region in the 19th century. Source: Wallonie: atouts et références d'une région. LMG-Ulg et Institut Jules Destrée, 1998</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="1">¹ Pasleau 2002</footnote>
Nevertheless, in the 20th century the momentum of the second Industrial Revolution in Europe was deflating, the discovery of a new fuel (petroleum), more efficient and cheaper to produce, gradually reduced the economic importance of coal, and therefore of the Belgian mining towns.

The process of deindustrialization was violent and left the region empty of resources and prospects. Cities such as Charleroi, La Louvière and Liège are still paying the price in terms of poverty, inequality, and unemployment. Demographic and economic decline, an aging population, incomes or GDP below the national average, low education levels are all evidence of this. The consequences on the spatial capital, in terms of soil and groundwater pollution, are also inestimable.

To the outside view, the Walloon industrial axis has still a radical and negative image [fig. 2].

<figure><img src="image_80.png" /><figcaption>[fig. 2] *Le cœur noir de l'Europe*, World Press Photo @Giovanni Troilo</figcaption></figure>

A part of the new industrial and productive narrative of Wallonia is still developing in the same space, but in different conditions. The resources of these areas, such as soil and landscape, are exploited by richer territories. Often, industries settle in the valley for multiple reasons: to take advantage of tax breaks, to enjoy large spaces available and to use hydraulic and railway infrastructures inherited from the first and second industrial revolutions.

Nevertheless, these factories no longer employ local people, whose schooling and training are no longer adapted to their needs. The big companies attract engineers and researchers with high levels of qualification, who are rather reluctant to settle next to the workplace, preferring cities of greater wealth, better connections and facilities such as the first or second urban belt of Brussels.

We can deduce that incomes are still generated in the Walloon axis but spent in different places.

While the major cities, like Charleroi and Liège, take individual initiatives, the intermediate territories suffer more easily from external interests.

However, as the former industrial Walloon axis is at the heart of Europe, next to the major wealthy areas, it benefits from the exceptional landscapes of Haine, Sambre, Meuse valleys, good accessibility, as well as from the proximity of hospitals and universities.

How to reconcile the productive and the presential economy? How to make the Walloon axis an attractive space for qualified workers and their families? How to include in the future transition the population already residing there? How to preserve the ecological assets of the valleys facing the challenges of climate change?

The Wallonia region requires a fresh narrative and, consequently, a renewed representation.

The current spatial potential of industrial and productive Walloon axis figure has never been exploited<fnref n="2" />, beyond a common history linked to coal mining.

<footnote n="2">² The scientific literature on social and economic issues of the Walloon industrial axis is extensive. Conversely, there is a lack of literature focusing on spatial analysis. To my knowledge, the urban planning research about the Walloon industrial axis has focused on specific spatial sequences or specific themes (e.g.: Furlan's doctoral thesis focused on the wasteland areas around Charleroi ['On worn out landscape. Mapping wasteland in Charleroi and Veneto central territories']; E. Baldin doctoral thesis is about landscape regeneration approach of brownfields with case studies in the Wallonia region and Northern France industrial basin; as postdoctoral researcher, D. Peleman lectured the course Theory of Urban Design and his research 'The Laborious Landscape' dealt with the historical interaction between, industrialization, urbanization, and *labour* in Belgium.). This research seeks to bridge this gap.</footnote>