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You are observing the (in)famous urban morphology of the nebula city (nevelstad in Dutch), which indeed is somewhat the signature of Belgium (although you can find similar geographies in Poland or Italy, and it is not altogether unlike some kinds of urban sprawl found in the US). There is a significant literature on the topic, unfortunately mostly outside the English language, although the following paper gives some background: The Minimal Rationality of Housing Patterns in Flanders' Nevelstad ... At the risk of being too concise, the urban pattern originates from a strong industrialization in the 19th century (on top of a historical polycentric pre-industrial urban system) where urbanization was discouraged due to all sorts of political (geographic) reasons. Belgium supported the most dense public transport infrastructure in the 19th century which led to a suburban landscape which was rather unique in the days before the car (see: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305748811000053). In time, this led to an institutionalization of the nebula urban fabric (the lightrail in time being replaced by a car mobility system). This implies that people have become accustomed to the idea (or even feel entitled to the 'right') to build their own houses on self-owned suburban or rural plots of land and commute to their work (commuting tolerance is significantly higher in Belgium compared to neighboring countries). The resulting landscape is indeed not without its problems, in particular because of mobility and environmental issues. However, changing an urban morphology to which people (and therefore voters) are accustomed to is not a simple question. The problem gets more complicated (in particular in the Brussels area where you were looking at) because of Begium's devolved political system. Spatial planning is a responsibility of the regions (Flanders, Wallonia and the very small Brussels capital region). In Flanders, the government has been aiming for containment of the urban sprawl since their first regional spatial plan in 1997 (ruimtelijk structuurplan Vlaanderen, currently under revision). However, urban living remains relatively unpopular (gentrification outside Brussels is limited to the central cores of cities) and thus, any attempt to change the urban fabric by planning regulations has to walk a tightrope between societal needs (mobility, environment) and suburban cultural preferences / strong social valuation of individual property rights in a highly complicated multilayered political system. Michiel van Meeteren MSc PhD student in Social and Economic Geography, Ghent University. Krijgslaan 281/S8 (WE 12) 9000 Gent, Belgium E: [log in to unmask] T: +32 9 264 46 97 > > On Aug 1, 2012, at 23:16, Hillary Shaw wrote: > >> 'Travel' (virtually) round the suburban environs of Brussels, on Google earth or Google Streetview (or better still toggle between both) and you soon see that the pattern of urban land usage (hoiuses + gardens) and rural (meadows) is somewhat different from the UK, or indeed any other country I've been to. Rather than a distinction betwene rural and urban, there are long strings of ribbon development along rural lanes, with fields in between. Even odder (to Uk eyes anyway) there are frequently smallpatches of grass meadow buried in amongst residential. And (OK this is subjective) small villages frequently have very 'inner-urban' looking buildings. >> >> Anyone else noted this. Does Belgium actually have urban zoning, it doen't look like it does, which seems odd for a densely populated country that hasn't got abundant land to build over. >> >> Dr Hillary Shaw >> Food and Supply Chain Management Department >> Harper Adams University College >> Newport >> Shropshire >> TF10 8NB >> www.fooddeserts.org >> Only those with bird brains should tweet > >