Reading: Eric Corijn’s “De Verenigde Steden van Europa : ter verdediging van de democratie” (The United Cities of Europe to the rescue of democracy).
Overall, an argument that I like. Cities are spaces where national stories are quieter and local needs predominate. They are more multicultural than the average of the countries they are situated in. In an era where nationalism and division is rising again, cities can be the foundation of an effort to bring people and cultures together, and create a post-national democracy.
In Europe, specifically, there is an opportunity to create Europe from the cities, and do that founded on local democracy and democratic innovation, rather than getting stuck at the level of member states and their internal politics.
Brussels, in particular, is pointed out as the potential archetype, a city that is already hyperdiverse and needs to overcome the history of Belgian communitarianism (also written into its electoral system) to truly establish itself as the capital of Europe. This is something I’ve thought myself in the past, but the connection between Brussels, Belgium and Europe is more complex than that – something that needs more reflection.
The big missing point in Corijn’s argument is the rural areas. A large share of Europeans live in cities, but many live in rural or periurban areas which are not properly connected into the urban core. Take, for example, the statement of the mayor of Grimbergen, by any measure part of the Brussels economic area but just across the border in Vlaams-Brabant. When the plans for a tram from Grimbergen into central Brussels were cancelled, she celebrated, saying “it’s all very well to be able to get into Brussels easily but what will come out”. That “oil stain” effect of Brussels diversity into the surrounding suburbs and countryside is a significant point of resistance, and of nationalism. We need an approach to saving democracy that does not treat those areas as afterthoughts.