Acceso usuarios
Pascal de Decker, Christian Kesteloot, Filip de Maesschalck, Jan Vranken
The article presents information on the rise of urban policies in Flanders, Belgium. Since 1988, Flanders has been hit by so-called "Black Sundays," a series of election victories for the extreme right and racist party Vlaams Blok. The rise of the Vlaams Blok has historical roots in the anti-urban nature of housing, mobility and planning policies since the foundation of the country. The immediate causes are the decreasing legitimacy of politics during the unstable 1980s, and the worsening of material circumstances, especially of vulnerable people in the large cities. In 1982, the first local elections in which the party participated, the Vlaams Blok obtained 27,600 votes in Flanders. The Vlaams Blok relative score systematically increases with urban density. The present day urban problems in Flanders have historical roots, which can be summarized as non or anti-urbanism. Although the geographical outcome of this industrialization wave was more regional than urban, it became clear how industrialization and the spatial concentration of workers were accompanied by secularization and the growth of the socialist labour movement.
