The Life-Sized City - Antwerp

The second of our winter 2025/26 Screenings and Discussions events took us to Antwerp – the episode having been chosen for the shared issues of coping with a present very different from its past, the loss of cultural spaces and pressure of commercially-driven development. An early interviewee talks of the need to move on from growth, and this prompted discussion among viewers:- do we need growth? Is there a right sort of growth? If so what is it?

It also raised the question of whether citizen action such as popping out a few paving slabs to add street planting was likely to be problematic. The issue of how this is done while balancing accessibility needs was raised, along with the problems of services beneath pavements. The approach of “act first, ask forgiveness later” was touched on (and the excellent Tactical Urbanism by Lydon & Garcia explores this a lot).

Exploring the Commons Lab website shows they are kicking around big ideas behind the planting – and this touches on an important question asked during the discussion – “you can imagine an episode made in York – it would visit Spark, Lowfield Green, Planet Food. But what’s the next level up of joining together these individual initiatives”? Coincidence brought coverage of a report today which spells out the role of housing associations in getting people into work. It turns out that creating supportive places to live, with good networks and agencies that acknowledge people’s skills and values is important, not just training and job offers. Issues are (as Darren McGarvey spells out in The Social Distance Between Us) linked in complex ways.

This was explored nicely in a visit to a project which Collectief Goed was running – bringing near-derelict houses back into use for poorer families – and providing training in building skills. As was clearly stated, the four walls were only part of it – it was also about the broader support to enable people to live the lives they wanted. It was a project that echoed the work of the wonderful Giroscope in Hull – buying and improving homes, building up stock and capacity, and gradually exploring what more they could do – turning an abandoned church into an enterprise centre.

There was a walkabout with SAAMO – a local charity doing work with young men who had “lost faith in the system” – it was pointed out that not a single woman featured in this item but a visit to SAAMO’s website shows their work is far broader. Local creatives were interviewed about the loss of creative spaces – the reality seemed to be that there were still opportunities but also worries about the pressure of money and development.

One nice observation which prompted discussion was around the need within urban planning and development to retain “gaps which are not designed” – perhaps something to remember in York Central. Our discussion also linked this to York’s city centre – a place which feels it has unused space (6% ground floor vacancy rising to 20% when upper floors are considered). We touched on the work previously done – the “Living Over The Shop” initiative being just one example – but the issue endures, possibly due to the combination of absent and disinterested building owners and those with fixed wishes (as yet undelivered) of their own.

There was familiarity around De Kompaan and its local food project – feeding people on a pay-as-you-feel basis but also building connections. This is similar to Planet Food at York’s Southlands Methodist Church – where a number of YoCo members volunteer – which uses surplus food from local supermarkets and elsewhere to provide an affordable lunch each Thursday.

The final chunk of the film explored very different responses to traffic issues in the city. The Oosterweel project aims to complete the missing link in Antwerp’s inner ring road and create new roads to enable freight traffic to avoid the city – eye-wateringly expensive and for many (including the presenter) hard to get enthusiastic about despite the design hiding the motorways beneath new green space.

At the other end of the scale Comite Bump was a resident-led initiative to try to reduce traffic in a congested urban residential area, using the “you may as well have a bingo card as you’ll be sat in your car for some time” approach to talk with drivers and encourage them to re-think their travel choices. With a current modal split of 70% vehicles / 20% cycles & walking / 10% buses (York is roughly 59% / 32% / 9%) change is clearly needed, but the look in their faces suggested they knew more than bingo cards was needed – “we are talking with the council”.

This highlights perhaps the biggest question from the film for the York viewer, which returns to that “how do we lift this to the next level” issue:- much of the good stuff in Antwerp seemed to be happening despite the council. How might we enable more effective, better-connected citizen action here in York where there is a clearer connecting mechanism with the council? Are the current means of engagement – the city’s “Our Big Conversation” and the York Central developers’ “community drop-in” events fit for purpose if there is more ambition about working in partnership rather than simply in isolation? What might be built to bridge the gap, and how?