The Art of Horizontal Urbanization: The Urban Questions of Engineer August Mennes in the Antwerp Agglomeration

Abstract

The Belgian territory has repeatedly been described as a notorious case of distributed urbanization. Municipal autonomy, dispersed housing policies and extended transportation networks have led to the emergence of a dispersed urban realm. Belgium, in the words of Grosjean is the product of a process of ‘urbanization without urbanism’ (Grosjean in Urbanisation sans urbanisme: une histoire de la ville diffuse. Mardagac, Wavre, 2010). Avoiding the negative externalities of industrial congestion and high concentrations, a policy of ‘urbanization without cities’ (Bookchin in Urbanization without Cities: the rise and decline of citizenship. Black Rose Books, New York, 1992) gave rise to a predominantly sub-urban lifeworld-beyond the country’s historical and mercantile cities. However pertinent this reading, it would be insufficient to restrict narratives on Belgium’s urbanization to dispersion policies alone. A noteworthy episode on ‘urbanizing the greater agglomerations’ for instance, marked the first decades of the twentieth century (Holvoet in Les grandes agglomerations urbaines. Ghiesbreght, Bruxelles, 1937; UVCB in L’administration et l’urbanisation des grandes agglomérations. UVCB, Bruxelles, 1925). What did it mean to ‘urbanize the agglomerations’ in a context where density, concentration and citification were generally avoided? Looking into the history of ‘urbanizing the Antwerp Agglomeration’ (Geyselynck, L’urbanisation de l’agglomération Anversoise. La Métropole, Anvers, 1929), the contours of this practice and its legacy are recollected.