During the 1960s and 1970s, local politicians ignored the socio-spatial dynamics because they were not electoral issues. In Brussels there are neighbourhoods where the foreign population represents 80 per cent of the population, a clear deficit in terms of democracy if the foreign population are not enfranchised. It is not clear what the impact would be of extending the boundaries of political citizenship to non-European immigrant communities living in deprived neighbourhoods. I think, however, two points must be stated. First, I think we should insist on principles.
Enfranchisement is a right to be decided independently from nationality.
Anyone who contributes to public resources and their redistribution has the right to participate in decisions on the composition and allocation of these. Second, it is not easy to foresee what will be the impact of voting rights on the trajectories of declining urban neighbourhoods. Comparisons with the Dutch case are not easy because the spatial distribution of areas with high concentrations of immigrants has shifted and further these concentration levels differ between cities. There are in Brussels neighbourhoods where the percentage of foreigners is double that of the highest concentration rate in Amsterdam. It is hard to imagine that granting voting rights to foreigners would have no impact at all on the situation in these neighbourhoods.