How do you create a city where people feel at home?

Bas van Heur: ‘When you think of infrastructure, you quickly think of networks of roads and utilities, but there is also community infrastructure for education, care and social security. Within the lecture series, we focus mainly on that infrastructure, on places in the city that bring people together. Those so-called ‘third spaces’ can be very broad: from green or other public spaces to the shared management of water infrastructure, for example. Our infrastructure for urban well-being is under great pressure due to privatisation of public space, gentrification and neoliberalism. At the same time, in response, you see more and more counter-movements emerging that try to rethink community infrastructure, through more civic governance, among other things.’
 

"International speakers come to answer the question of what urban infrastructures people need for their well-being"

The lectures will take place at USquare. In what way does it itself fulfil a role as a third space?

‘USquare in itself frames itself within a classic urban ‘top-down’ development project in which government actors collaborate with the VUB and ULB. The social infrastructure projects discussed are often smaller-scale and rather ‘bottom-up’, but you can see that USquare fulfils similar functions. On the one hand, it has become a public space by breaking open the old barracks walls, allowing Brussels residents to increasingly appropriate the site. On the other hand, there is the temporary use of spaces and the site under the name UR Square with a constantly changing offer, from yoga to communal dinners and various parties. The challenge will be to maintain this flexibility and openness to initiatives also in the near future when all the buildings have been given a definitive function. The role of the VUB and ULB in supporting the social infrastructure may also become important. One example is the large entrance hall on General Jacques Avenue, which is used on a continuous basis for lectures, receptions and exhibitions, often wider than just academic. It has become a popular venue in a very short time. On the first floor is the OpenLab, which focuses on bringing together citizens, non-academic organisations, researchers and other urban actors. There are also research groups here that have an urban, engaged and ecological approach in their DNA: my own research group Cosmopolis (VUB), but also groups like SONYA and CEESE from ULB. That fits in very well here; it creates an interesting dynamic, also for the cooperation between VUB and ULB. I am therefore an absolute fan of this place.’

"Some say that Brussels is ten years behind cities like Barcelona and Berlin. On the other hand, Brussels has a very strong, dynamic and diverse civil society"

Which lecture are you looking forward to in particular?

‘On Friday 7 March, Silke Van Dyk from the University of Jena will speak. Among other things, she did research on what role private property plays in the reproduction of social inequality. She will give a presentation on the rise of the new municipalism (the drive to achieve a form of self-government at the municipal or urban level) based on field research in Barcelona. I also think the last speaker on 4 April is definitely worthwhile: Stavros Stavrides from Athens is one of the big names in the debate on ‘urban commons’, which are public spaces under the direct care and management of communities.