Covivio Newsletter
Understanding tomorrow's city
- Find out all the Covivio news every month
- Discover our latest projects: offices, residential, hotels
- Decipher the city and its challenges with our Expert Views
It only takes 35 minutes from Lille-Europe TGV station to reach the Belgian capital, so much so that several hundred ‘commuters’ use it every day to get to work, in either direction. But these two fundamentally European cities share much more than geographical proximity. The challenges they face are so similar that a cooperation agreement has existed between the Brussels-Capital Region and the European metropolis of Lille since 1996. Yet each has developed and reinvented its own identity.
The urban fabric of both conurbations is marked by their glorious industrial past. One, Lille, is located at the heart of a mining region whose activity began to decline in the 1960s. The region and its capital have long suffered from a sombre image, marked by abandoned slag heaps and site closures. The town and its conurbation were themselves built around the expertise of the cloth industry, which made the town prosper and attracted cross-border workers from Belgium and elsewhere. On the other side of the border, Brussels built its urban fabric around the manufacturing activities that made it a leading industrial power until the mid-twentieth century. These sister cities have both managed to recover from deindustrialisation and radically change their image, albeit with divergent strategies.
From the 1960s onwards, the regional capital embarked on a determined transition to a leading cultural role, culminating in 2004, when it was designated European Capital of Culture. The French and Europeans were amazed to discover the immense resilience of the city and its inhabitants, who shone through with a profusion of projects and events during this exceptional year. It was a fine revenge for the capital of Flanders, which had failed to win the bid to host the 2004 Olympic Games. The project will enable a number of sites, such as the Tri Postal, a former sorting office, and the church of Sainte-Marie Madeleine, to be rehabilitated. Culture and festivities permeate every district of the urban area, from the Grand’place to the forecourt of Lille-Europe station, where the Shangri’La Tulips still greet visitors. But it’s also making the new Euralille district shine, where the 2004, the largest site for these celebrations, has been set up. The momentum is still going strong, supported by the Lille 3000 project, which offers an exceptional cultural programme every three years.
Lille is also taking advantage of its position at the heart of Europe, helped by the arrival of the TGV high-speed train in 1994, to make Euralille France’s 3rd business district. Christian de Portzamparc, Jean Nouvel and Claude Vasconi have all contributed to the emergence of this major business hub, designed by Dutch architect and urban planner Rem Khoolas. In 2008, EuraTechnologie, Europe’s oldest business incubator, opened its doors, offering 150,000 m² of office space in the former headquarters of La Redoute in Roubaix. Hundreds of start-ups have replaced the employees and the order-packing lines. The Blanchemaille district is still being redeveloped, and by 2026 should be home to a vast e-commerce site. The works are in full swing, with circularity and re-use as the watchwords.
In Brussels, deindustrialisation coincided with the gradual establishment of the European institutions, which gradually took over the Leopold district, close to the capital’s historic centre. At first, these institutions were discreet, occupying office buildings and then the Charlemagne building, before moving on to emblematic buildings. The headquarters of the European Commission, the Berlaymont, in 1976, then the headquarters of the European Parliament in 1993, above the Parc Léopold. That same year, Brussels officially became the capital of the European institutions. Inhabitants gradually left this hyper-specialised district, which attracted a population of ultra-qualified workers, the “Bruxpats”. Today, more than 40,000 European civil servants work in Brussels, in addition to around 50,000 lobbyists.
This attractiveness, reinforced by the European institutions, feeds the cosmopolitan nature of Brussels, which is home to almost 180 nationalities and almost 37% of its inhabitants are foreign. This population is in addition to the many business and leisure tourists (almost 10 million overnight stays by 2023), who come to walk the famous Grand-Place, a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, the arrival of a highly skilled and affluent population in the city centre or the European Quarter has also contributed to tightening the property market and reinforcing a pre-existing residential segregation between the European city and its surroundings. The least affluent populations are concentrated in certain outlying districts, where some neighbourhoods have unemployment rates of up to 30%.
For some years now, the Brussels-Capital Region has been pursuing a policy of re-industrialisation and reallocation of space to productive activities, in order to diversify employment opportunities in the region. This is the ambition of Citydev, the former Société de Développement pour la Région de Bruxelles-Capitale, which has set itself the task of helping companies to set up in the region. Two emblematic projects are currently underway: Bridge City and Lion City, two neighbourhoods undergoing redevelopment that should integrate productive activities. Citydev is also carrying out a vast social housing development programme.
In Lille, the city is also combating residential segregation through an intensive programme to rehabilitate old buildings in its QPVs[1] , as well as through social programmes, with €6.8 million injected between 2020 and 2023. These initiatives will continue, with €2 million allocated each year until 2027.
And what about tomorrow? In 2025, the people of Lille will once again be welcoming millions of visitors to celebrate the “Fiesta”, the theme chosen for the new edition of Lille 3000, which honours the sense of festivity and resilience of the people of the Nord. In 2019, the programme attracted more than 2 million visitors, a record to be beaten, which certainly contributed to the increase of more than 30% in the number of overnight stays booked at Lille between 2018 and 2022 .[1] Just as many visitors are expected in Brussels to celebrate the centenary of the Art Deco movement, which will be showcasing jewels such as the Villa Empain, the Van Buuren house and gardens and Wiels. The programme is supported by Urban Brussels, the administration responsible for promoting the Region’s heritage and urban programmes. “Urban wants to approach the subject from a critical angle, questioning the past in the light of current architecture“, explains Sarah Lagrillière, Deputy Director General of Urban. The two conurbations are once again demonstrating that they can look back with pride on their rich heritage, both tangible and intangible, and project it into the future.
[1] QPV: Quartiers Prioritaires de la Politique de la Ville (Priority neighbourhoods for urban policy)