Brussels, City of the Coming Century

Brussels is a textbook example of a twenty-first century city: its inhabitants have blown in from all the winds, and it has experience in accomodating minorities and having many different cultures living together. If the techocratic violence of Europe does not flatten this city, it has an unpredictable but very promising future: on the border between Latin and Germanic Europe, open to the Mediterranean basin and tomorrow, who knows, perhaps open to Central Europe as well, introverted but multi-faceted, peace-loving and down-to earth. Brussels is certainly not the most beautiful city in Europe, Brussels is chaotic, because Brussels has been cruelly disfigured and violated, even by its own citizens. Nevertheless, many people stili feel at home in what Flemish Brussels singer Johan Verminnen calls the ‘binnenzak', the inside pocket, of this city of the coming century..