The Northern Quarter in Brussels is set to receive a makeover – both in aesthetic terms and also in its denomination – as L'Echo reports that the neighbourhood will be soon changing its name.
A new marketing campaign is being developed with the French agency Bastille, with the aim to revamp the image of the Northern Quarter as a "hip" district in the making – demolishing and (hopefully) ridding the city of one of its worst Brusselization hangovers.
The new name of the district remains strictly confidential and will be unveiled in a month's time – after consultation with the office and local residents.
Re-Brusselization or a new beginning?
The area is widely seen as an urban tragedy inherited from the late 1960s, born out of the ambition, or megalomania, of the Brussels Councillor Paul Vanden Boeynants and property developer friend Charly De Pauw.
Called 'Manhattan' for obvious reasons, the idea was to create a business district from scratch, forcing thousands of residents to leave their homes, which were razed to the ground to make way for office towers.
Already having faced its problems over the years, the neighbourhood was largely dormant in out of office hours, and its one-track use – work offices and spaces – showed its limits during the Covid-19 pandemic with the rise of teleworking, effectively killing off the neighbourhood.
Cardboard shelter for homeless people, at the Brussels North Station, Friday 29 December 2017. Credit: Belga / Nicolas Maeterlinck
The area has high levels of poverty, which in a largely abandoned neighbourhood, have stigmatised the area to be mainly associated with higher crime levels.
These concerns were also raised by EU officials, who have been reluctant to move the European Quarter into the Northern Quarter after having been proposed to relocated there by the Brussels authorities.
What will change?
So, what is Brussels actually planning for the neighbourhood? Plans include two luxury hotels with restaurants and bars, more green spaces, a new music venue and will be boosted by the new KANAL-Pompidou Centre in the old Citroën showroom, which is set to open in 2025.
"The aim is to create a new spirit of the neighbourhood and to give it a positive identity, also for the inhabitants who are already there. We should be able to say that we live in the Northern Quarter with the same pride that already exists for Saint-Gilles or Châtelain," says Pascal Smet, Minister of Mobility and Public Works (one.brussels).
Smet also underlined that the area will not undergo a socially-exclusive gentrification process.
Brussels Palais de Justice between towers in the Northern Quarter of Brussels, 09 May 2006. Credit: Belga / Benoit Doppagne
"We need to increase the number of housing units in all segments. We are well aware that we must be careful not to build only luxury housing on Boulevard Albert II and only social housing on Chaussée d'Anvers," Smet said when speaking to L'Echo.
"We will not be able to completely undo the mistakes of the 1970s. We have to turn the page. In Brussels, too many people are living in the past," says the Brussels Secretary of State for Urban Development. According to Pascal Smet , these office towers should be used as an opportunity to breathe new life into the district.
"Many people like the towers when you activate the roof terraces. I am convinced that with the announced investments, the arrival of the two hotels, this can result in a pleasant neighbourhood to work and live in, with a nightlife," Smet concluded.
