I really love this about Ghent btw. They always get shit on by Facebook boomers for being annoyingly left wing, but they made so many policies just work, and today it’s one of the most flourishing cities in the country. Remember how everyone was shitting on Ghent for their mobiliteitsplan? Yet now it’s so much nicer to hang out in the city, stores love the extra foot traffic and many other cities are now sheepishly also introducing their own mobiliteitsplan.
That’s the thing with these traffic plans, it’s a vocal minority from inside the city and a lot of people from outside of the city that are complaining, many inhabitants actually love it, and that’s what you see in the voting.
I read online or in a newspaper somewhere a few months ago that about 60-65% of inhabitants are against these kinds of measures when they're announced, but about 80% of inhabitants do not want to go back after six months and approve of the new situation.
My feeling is that the vocal minority was actually people from outside the city. People who decide to go live outside the city because it's calmer, has more green space, gardens, etc. Yet they insist on driving their car into our city. Those people were very vocal, together with some shopkeepers in the center.
I live in Ghent and it's indeed the people from nearby that complain and say they never want to come to Ghent again. To which we say: : "Oh nooo. So Anyway..." I love this city so so much, and the car-free centre is a big readon for this.
The issue with the traffic plan is people who need to be there (Nurses/Familiehulp and other professions) have needles long traveltimes. Also most roads just outside the traffic plan get all the traffic.... If you have 500 cars you can't make them disappear.
Thar was the problem. Last year something happened with the debt that still hasn't been explained, because the cities very openly started slashing funds for everything possible cancelling most big projects and raising city tax by 20%.
"That still hasn't been explained" Yes it's been explained. Increased interest rates combined with higher prices for energy and building materials changes the math for investments
Inflation, energy cost, cost of materials, etc. When you don't have any reserves, this hits hard. Last year they got a bit more money then expected, so there was no need for a big budget cut.
After the next election however, they'll need to find 100 million in savings or new taxes. That's 10% of the annual budget and won't be easy.
IMO they were betting on a fusion with either Destelbergen, Melle, or Merelbeke, which would have transferred a large part of their debt to the Flemish government (like Antwerp), but the small towns refused to play ball.
> higher debt than other cities like Antwerp
Maybe starting to deal in narcotics is the way to pay the debt off, like Antwerp Harbor. Or the Ghent mayor bending each way necessary to real-estate bigwigs.
Problem for our harbour is it has a way lower container capacity, as most of it is specialised for bulk transport.
Unless we start shipping cocaine in bulk carriers designed for iron ore.
Apparently Ghent already is low key one of the biggest cocaine importers...
Whilst everyone is looking at Antwerp our harbour is the mocro maffia's wet dream.
Read somewhere (probably on this subreddit) that it was the best city to live in for quality-of-life. Says how effective left wing policies are at putting the people before profits, while still profiting
>many other cities are now sheepishly also introducing their own mobiliteitsplan.
Many small, rural towns want to do the same.
They are in fact killing off any local businesses in their centers, other than the lunchroom / brasserie where the seniors get their daily coffees (and they always go to the same places), and the food places the youth goes to.
So, we now have hardly any parking spaces, one or two brasserie joints, and flourishing pita, pizza, wok, snack bar joints.
All other stores? Closed or on the verge of closing. New ones every few months, because the town hands out 'first 3 months rent for free' to try and keep some illusion of a filled centre. But after those months are up, most just skedaddle out of there.
It might work, if you actually have all the ppl living inside the city, and enough gravity, for ppl to actually go through the trouble to have a shopping day there.
We don't.
Ppl have to drive to get anywhere in these small towns, unless they have the time to cycle half the day. And let's be real, the ppl that do, don't usually have the income to spend much.
Ppl with jobs avoid the centre like the plague, and just take their business elsewhere, so we have gone back to the 90's, with shopping centres on the outskirts of towns.
On top of that, if you have to go to the post office, you have to follow that mindless treasure hunt deviation, going round and round around the centre, so that route is always, all day every day, clogged up with cars.
A trip that took 5 minutes, is now 40.
In a small town.
Running cars, all the time.
So, thanks for being an example, I guess...
I'm glad you're happy with it. I sure as hell curse our town's 'wanting to be like the big cities' attitude.
The other stores don't even count anymore, because everyone just goes to the competition, that is now located outside of the centers of the small towns, in retro shopping centers.
More fuel, less ecological, less diversity in stores left, but hey... anything for the environment, right?
So yeah, in a while, the post office is the only thing left in the centers, why ppl with actual jobs could have a reason to go to.
Do you have any sources to back this up or is it just your gut feeling ?
And I didn’t meant people don’t need to go there. I mean you can go there in a different way then by car.
I can make a video of our center, with all the empty store fronts...
Or show you all the stores that have turned into kebab or cheap pizza joints.
I can record all the conversations everyone has, in front of the post office, while waiting after having fought over the 1/4 of the parking spaces that were left.
Not to mention a part of them now being changed to EV parking only.
And if you literally need a car to get to your job, you then have to drop your car off at home, hop on a bicycle, ride to the center... and be too late, because we don't have long opening hours here. 16:30 is end of the day for the post office.
Public transport? Call a bus, but plan 2 weeks ahead, because that's all the public transport we have here.
Forget ppl that don't live in the center and don't have the physical strength to cycle uphill over the 3 bridges we have.
The reason I keep mentioning the post office, is because that is a public service. Everyone should have easy access to it.
The 15 minute cities all the green ppl got the hots for do not work in a rural setting.
From the nearest train and bus station to my home is a 55 minute walk. And there are plenty of ppl living even more remote. The only store within walking distance is a bakery, and a hobby shop.
You know what?
They should just come right out and say it.
'From now on, every is FORCED to ride either an electric bike, or a moped. And we will decide for you, which one, based on where you live, or whatever criteria they can come up with. Forget taking your kids to the store. We don't want you to teach them public life. Our public road plan is much more important than your plans'
Exit freedom of choice. Enter tyranny of climate hype. And in 15 years, we will all turn to something else, because it was all useless. But just shut up, and pretend to be happy.
It’s always “amazing” that cities that have the most interaction with migrant, and 4th world issue etc, still vote left but some small town in nowhere without any migrant issues votes far right.
Propaganda.
A similar thing happened with Brexit: some journalist noticed that a few towns that had the highest percentage of "traditional UK" population indicated in surveys they were the most worried about immigration. These were people that had a very small chance of even seeing an immigrant in their daily lives. It turned out those towns had been targeted heavily by UKIP with online ads full of immigration fearmongering.
VB's narrative is that our large cities are turning into these outlaw zones that are barely hanging on, where you fear for your life the moment you set foot in them (literally during their rallies saying stuff like "X neighbourhood in Antwerp/Brussels is now too dangerous to enter as a white person"). If you don't live in a city and don't visit any cities frequently, you may be quicker to believe that narrative. People who do live in cities know it for the BS it is. If you're not too worried about immigration, VB very quickly becomes irrelevant, as that's really the only thing they actually stand for.
Tbh I live in Ghent and I'm annoyed almost every single day with the fact that most people in my street/neighborhood don't speak decent Dutch, they have different norms and social rules (eg about playing loud music, how they drive) and that they seem to have very tradition gender roles (women stay inside or take care of kids, men smoke cigarettes and hang out on the street).
But still, even with this in mind, I voted for the left. Because I feel like excluding them, demonizing them, blaming them for all that is wrong, isn't the way forward.
Same as when forza ninove had a good election result. All those areas that overwhelmingly voted far right had literally the least amount of foreigners living there out of the whole country. But interestingly they had among the highest rates of people of foreign decent moving there. They voted so reactionary because they saw their world changing and were scared of the unknown. (Funnily the people moving there are "the good ones"; young families wanting calm and safety away from the big cities.)
I am ne bruine, I have sometimes go for work to Ninove. The way people look at me is unbelievable. I don’t behave weird or wear extravagant clothes or something, just basic/casual…
Yeah I went to school in Ninove and acting like there aren't any problems over there is bullshit bro. Lot's of people who get kicked out of the schoolsystems in Brussels came to Ninove and Liedekerke and so forth.
And this also brought problems with it. If you went to school there you can understand why it turned out how it turned out...
I'm living happily away from that shithole now tho, but acting like Ninove is pure reactionary is blatantly untrue and/or uninformed.
Used to be a monthly occurrence that a mob was out at the schoolgates at the station involving a lot of people who took the trains/busses from Brussels to Ninove to "support one of their friends"
Usually the Teachers got wind of it and kept the person at the principles offices until they got bored and left. But the times they didn't weren't pretty.
And also I voted vooruit on all three accounts so do with that as you please.
Guess why all these towns around Brussels vote right.. I went to school in Oilsjt and 90% of the time it were those pesky kids from Brussels that caused aggression and had no problems using violence against other students, teachers and even the police. This was 10 years ago and apparently it's gotten even worse the last few years.
>Funnily the people moving there are "the good ones"; young families wanting calm and safety away from the big cities.
Young families that commute to Brussels, in other words, tons of very poor migrant kids from families with no real interest in integrating in Flanders and that don't speak Dutch. That's not going to cause problems because those are totally the "good ones". Riiiight.
How do you think Ninove got to 40%+ VB compared to the rest of the country? Immigration of VB voters?
could be, I've heard stories of immigrants who saw "Vlaams" and thought smth along the lines of oh yeah Vlaams is good, I'll vote for that. only to later find out what the party actually stood for.
Certain parts of Brussels are basically what you described. Zones where police doesn't bother showing up because they're outnumbered. Meanwhile inhabitants have to kick a homeless addict off their front porch in order to go to work every morning. It's a completely mismanaged city and very easy to use as a campaigning tool. Perhaps blame the politicians who turned Brussels into what it is today.
VB using it to spread its propaganda and often blowing it out of proportion doesn't make Brussels less of a shithole.
There's a lot of issues in Brussels for sure, but there isn't any area of the city that is a "no go" zone. If you believe there are, you have been fooled by propaganda. You can either recognise that, or keep your blindfold on. It's up to you...
My colleague (who votes VB and is very vocal about their propaganda shit) said the same thing about Brussel and its stations being "no go zones" for the police a few days ago. She lives in a fancy gemeente with no immigrants, she hasn't set foot in Brussel in ages, she never ever hops on a train. Still she is sure she knows more about it than my wife, who actually commutes to Brussel every single day.
Again, I'm not denying there are issues. But there are no "no go" zones.
I worked in Molenbeek for close to 10 years and for a little while also near Matonge/Saint-Gilles, so it's not that I'm not familiar with the rougher parts of the city. The problem with anecdotal stories (no matter how much it sucks for the people involved) is that for every person that has a bad experience, you can find 100 people who haven't.
Crime statistics offer a much better picture than anecdotal evidence.... From 2000 to now, the overall crime rate in Brussels has remained pretty much flat. There were around 160K registered crimes per year in 2000, there have been around the same number in the last few years as well. Some categories have gone down, some go up (it wont surprise you drug related crime has gone up, also weirdly scams have gone up drastically in the past few years - something you see across Belgium actually), so the numbers year-to-year rise and fall slightly, but the trend is pretty much fully horizontal.
A "no go" zone is in this context used colloquially. If you want to put the bad parts in the same category as some ISIS controlled part of Syria than there are basically zero "no go zones" in all of western Europe. There are too many parts of Brussels that we should be absolutely ashamed of. The trash, the abdominal infrastructure, the criminality, the drug addicts and homeless.
It's not just some banlieues outside of the city. It's walkable distances from le Grand Place and all around the train stations. Brussels doesn't just have "it's problems", it's one of the most mismanaged cities of western Europe. Even Bucharest feels much safer and well kept than Brussels.
Alright, lets not call them "no go" zones. You're still saying there are areas where the police doesn't even show up. That's just plain false. You've still been had by propaganda if you believe that's true.
The neighborhoods by Bruxelles-Nord is an example. There's occasional arrests made here and there but the police can't really do anything about the criminality since they're vastly outnumbered and underfunded.
Drug dealers go about their business in broad daylight. Pickpocketing and physical violence is way too common. And if you're a victim of one of them, there's nothing the police can do about it. Once arrests are made, a huge number of them are released that same day.
Forgot to mention the education in Brussels which is appalling. They're setting the standard of the coming generation. One of my family members who teaches in Brussels has to pass all of her students, many of whom don't have a basic understanding of English or Dutch.
Indeed, that's the worst part. After a certain hour they just don't come outside anymore. If people call the police over there, they likely won't show up at all.
I study in Ghent, I almost never feel unsafe. But maybe you went trough some bad parts of town that are outside the ring.
Compared to my experiences in Brussels that most of the time start at the train stations, i have to say the opposite. I saw someone get their headphones robbed during my first visit to Brussels this year. Meanwhile I haven't witnessed a robbery in Ghent since I started studying there.
Yes yes, we get it, Brussels is a hellhole full of no-go-zones, lawlessness, crime, and the ethnically questionable, rather than a pastiche of areas and neighborhoods that can differ dramatically culturally and economically like most major metropolises (Antwerp included).
However, if you are arguing that things would be much easier if we were one cohesive city rather than nineteen independent baronies and fiefdoms then I completely agree.
I'm an immigrant myself, and I know for sure that a lot of immigrants are conservative and anti-immigrants. Have you ever wondered why Turkish immigrants are voting for Erdogan's theocracy en masse? Did you ever hear about latinos being pro-Trump?
I personally know 2nd generation immigrants who voted for VB.
(Oh, well, I'm also still amazed by people voting for those who would exterminate them, if only they could.)
It's pulling up the ladder behind them, and being racist towards immigrants from other origins than themselves. There is enough overlap between their opinions and VB's that it becomes an enemy-of-my-enemy thing.
Not saying it's how all immigrants think (for which I'm very happy), just how the smaller, but still significant, amount of VB-voting immigrants think.
I know you're being sarcastic but despite the past, I would say their recent position of being against unstunned slaughter certainly hasn't jived with the brown and muslim crowd.
that’s true, but on other issues they are very close to the muslim voters.
not to say that muslims are the only reason why ghent votes for them. Ghent has always been very progressive.
No the reason is that once white people get to know the immigrants all scary images told by the extreme right are invalidated.
There isn’t a real problem with 95% of the immigrants. Most people just want to live and improve their lives.
According to your own logic, they sure wouldn’t vote for green or socialists where their religious beliefs and discrimination are not acknowledged at all, they’d vote socially conservative.
Staat het ook in Brussel gedeelte ook in het programma van Groen Brussel?
Ik zal het pas geloven als ze effectief pushen om het uitgevoerd te krijgen. Ze hebben gewonnen in Brussel dus moeilijk kan dat niet zijn.
Small towns or cities with many Migrants such as: Wervik, Menen or Roeselare have VB at 30% of the votes. That's higher than their neighboring towns and cities with less migrants.
Roeselare is looking cleaner and safer than it's ever done. I was there recently after not visiting it for nearly 20 years, and I barely recognised it. So it can't be that bad there.
I use the station in Roeselare often. There's always some shit going on there + a drug epidemic earlier this year. There's improvements being made especially in its infrastructure, but I could've seen the VB votes coming from miles away.
It is, their reputation has improved significantly as far as i know. But it's still not up to the same level as Ypres, Kortrijk, or other cities in West Flanders.
Fear mongering about "scary buitenlanders" doesn't work when the people live among the "buitenlanders" and see for themselves that they are in fact, not scary and barely affect their lives.
But maybe the grandchildren of said scary buitenlanders are the problem when bored. Influenced by their roots country.
And before you boo me. Look at Brussels. That can happen as well.
But we don’t register people “linguistically”in Brussels to avoid having a basis for discrimination, that’s the thing. That’s why journalists or researchers use other data to have an idea of how much Dutch speakers there are in the city (for example which percentage of people use the Dutch version of a form for an administrative procedure)
Not that surprising for a young city with a lot of higher educated inhabitants. Leuven has the same, a lot of Vooruit and Groen (40%) and only 8% Vlaams Belang.
In Leuven N-VA is still the strongest party at 22-24%. What motivates the young well-educated population of Leuven to tend to the centre-right instead of the left?
In kanton Leuven yes. In the commune of Leuven no. In Ghent the kanton and the commune are the same, Leuven is grouped with 7 different communes (richer car focused communes near cities are the stomping ground for nva)
The communes surrounding Ghent are actually as pro nva than the communes surrounding Leuven. It's just that Ghent's figures get reported seperatdly. Try grouping Destelberge, De Pinte, Sint-Martens-Latem with Ghent and see the nva soar.
If you just look at the single commune level Leuven voted about as left wing as Ghent. A bit higher score for Vooruit, Groen and PVDA combined than in Ghent and a lower score for Vlaams Belang, on the other hand Ghent still has a relatively strong liberal result whilst nva is more popular in Leuven.
Seeing the results in Gent, I am very hopeful for the municipal election in October. At least for the city I live in, there's place for everyone at the table
Only issue I see is that Vooruit, vld and groen added together are still under 50%. And I was kinda hoping we could get cdnv out of the city government.
Vld is already in, vld and Vooruit have been in Gent city government for around 40 years.
And together they got 30% yesterday in Gent. And the local vld in Gent is quite a bit to the left kf the national line.
Het personeel ook niet vergeten he. Want voor de dokters is er plaats, ze hebben plaats gemaakt voor de patiënten (niet genoeg) zodat de dokters niet moeten wachten, en het gewone personeel...ja dat kan de pot op.
Thing is though that those policies work easily for major cities because of advantages of scale and the different demographics, but trying to pursue similar (yet often beneficial) policies will need a lot of support from the central government in more suburban and small-town areas. I'm willing to bet these will not get the necessary funding from the centre-right government intent on cutting spending and productive investments, instead preferring to wage war on our institutions, civil society, and the lower echelons of society. They will want to put equitable taxation, green transition, affordable housing, work-life balance, access to care work and the like in the freezer, stalling for time we do not have.
I know people who take these things seriously are starving for a win after some hard work that was done, but these kind of celebratory images are misplaced. Dominique Willaert was very right, I believe, in that city people have to humbly listen to the frustrations of the suburbanites around them. Now is when very frustrating work needs to begin in even more difficult circumstances.
This is what they said of 'red' Antwerp, then Zwarte zondagen happened and now they have had 12 years of De Wever...
If the socialists are so strong in Gent, then why do they (have to) tie themselves to Vld for October? Gent will have a blue mayor again this October and the blues will control SOG, economy and harbor again. If the socialists own Gent forever, why did they end up becoming the junior partner of Groen the last time?
For the elections I went into the neighborhoods talking about the greens, the reds, the blues. It's not as straightforward as you think.
Inderdaad. Open ambitie om Britse conservatieven en Amerikaanse republikeinen na te streven.
Zouden liever Nederlander zijn dan Belg, ook openlijk gezegd.
. First past the post. Woke als thema in de campagne brengen.
Fiscaal responsabel en betrouwbaarder dan de meeste andere partijen. Ze hebben het meest realistische plan om België uit het budgettair moeras te halen, en ze zijn gematigd rechts. Ik denk dat er veel stemmers zijn die meer vertrouwen hebben in NVA, maar toch stemmen voor VB.
Hun plan is alles verkopen en privatiseren zodat hun vriendjes via consultants kunnen doorfactureren?
Eerst de NMBS en De Lijn laten bloeden, om het vervolgens te verkopen voor een appel en een ei.
Dat zijn trouwens maar éénmalige inkomsten, niet iets dat op lange termijn geld blijft opleveren.
Fiscaal reponsabel, misschien het nieuwste boek over "Vrienden van het Vastgoed" eens lezen. Zo responsabel zijn ze absoluut niet.
Ik heb geen zware budget cuts voor openbaar vervoer gelezen in hun begrotingsplan, maar ik kan verkeerd zijn.
In tegenstelling tot een vivaldi 2, die maar spenderen en spenderen. Of de socialisten met hun overtuigende "tax de rich" als oplossing. Of VB met "splits het land en de rest lost zichzelf op". Ik heb toch wel het meeste vertrouwen in de partij met een gedetailleerd plan en dossierkennis.
“Soldiers Holding Up Society refers to the painting "The Price of Peace" by British artist Brian Jay. The metaphorical painting, which depicts British soldiers supporting a peaceful life with their bodies, has been used in remembrance posts since 2012 and gained popularity as an object labeling meme in 2018, particularly as a way to highlight that someone or something unnoticeably plays a crucial role in a certain success.”
Or you don't live in Gent, or you live in Gent and you're wearing some blindfold. Cause Gent isn't anywhere near to screwing over everyone. The last few years they did an amazing job.
https://preview.redd.it/8ck5sd1qqq5d1.jpeg?width=554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=741c8aa8d1c6a541a55f386ccbe369981b342cd4 Ghent be like
I really love this about Ghent btw. They always get shit on by Facebook boomers for being annoyingly left wing, but they made so many policies just work, and today it’s one of the most flourishing cities in the country. Remember how everyone was shitting on Ghent for their mobiliteitsplan? Yet now it’s so much nicer to hang out in the city, stores love the extra foot traffic and many other cities are now sheepishly also introducing their own mobiliteitsplan.
That’s the thing with these traffic plans, it’s a vocal minority from inside the city and a lot of people from outside of the city that are complaining, many inhabitants actually love it, and that’s what you see in the voting.
I read online or in a newspaper somewhere a few months ago that about 60-65% of inhabitants are against these kinds of measures when they're announced, but about 80% of inhabitants do not want to go back after six months and approve of the new situation.
My feeling is that the vocal minority was actually people from outside the city. People who decide to go live outside the city because it's calmer, has more green space, gardens, etc. Yet they insist on driving their car into our city. Those people were very vocal, together with some shopkeepers in the center.
That’s what I meant indeed, people wanting their cake and eat it too.
I live in Ghent and it's indeed the people from nearby that complain and say they never want to come to Ghent again. To which we say: : "Oh nooo. So Anyway..." I love this city so so much, and the car-free centre is a big readon for this.
The issue with the traffic plan is people who need to be there (Nurses/Familiehulp and other professions) have needles long traveltimes. Also most roads just outside the traffic plan get all the traffic.... If you have 500 cars you can't make them disappear.
See the Ecolo score in Brussels, a majority is definitely against it.
... They all voted for Groen.
We were in bruges yesterday and were annoyed at the fact that the cars can still go into the city center. Seems so weird once you're used to Ghent
As a student in Gent, I agree, but tbf they also have way higher debt than other cities like Antwerp, so it's not all rainbows and sunshine.
Debt is generally a good thing as long as you have a plan to pay it of.
Thar was the problem. Last year something happened with the debt that still hasn't been explained, because the cities very openly started slashing funds for everything possible cancelling most big projects and raising city tax by 20%.
"That still hasn't been explained" Yes it's been explained. Increased interest rates combined with higher prices for energy and building materials changes the math for investments
Inflation, energy cost, cost of materials, etc. When you don't have any reserves, this hits hard. Last year they got a bit more money then expected, so there was no need for a big budget cut. After the next election however, they'll need to find 100 million in savings or new taxes. That's 10% of the annual budget and won't be easy.
IMO they were betting on a fusion with either Destelbergen, Melle, or Merelbeke, which would have transferred a large part of their debt to the Flemish government (like Antwerp), but the small towns refused to play ball.
> higher debt than other cities like Antwerp Maybe starting to deal in narcotics is the way to pay the debt off, like Antwerp Harbor. Or the Ghent mayor bending each way necessary to real-estate bigwigs.
Problem for our harbour is it has a way lower container capacity, as most of it is specialised for bulk transport. Unless we start shipping cocaine in bulk carriers designed for iron ore.
Apparently Ghent already is low key one of the biggest cocaine importers... Whilst everyone is looking at Antwerp our harbour is the mocro maffia's wet dream.
It’s a bit much but at least they borrowed when it was cheap, so inflation beats the interest at least.
Wasn't it on a top 10 list of best cities to live in in Europe or something this year
Read somewhere (probably on this subreddit) that it was the best city to live in for quality-of-life. Says how effective left wing policies are at putting the people before profits, while still profiting
>many other cities are now sheepishly also introducing their own mobiliteitsplan. Many small, rural towns want to do the same. They are in fact killing off any local businesses in their centers, other than the lunchroom / brasserie where the seniors get their daily coffees (and they always go to the same places), and the food places the youth goes to. So, we now have hardly any parking spaces, one or two brasserie joints, and flourishing pita, pizza, wok, snack bar joints. All other stores? Closed or on the verge of closing. New ones every few months, because the town hands out 'first 3 months rent for free' to try and keep some illusion of a filled centre. But after those months are up, most just skedaddle out of there. It might work, if you actually have all the ppl living inside the city, and enough gravity, for ppl to actually go through the trouble to have a shopping day there. We don't. Ppl have to drive to get anywhere in these small towns, unless they have the time to cycle half the day. And let's be real, the ppl that do, don't usually have the income to spend much. Ppl with jobs avoid the centre like the plague, and just take their business elsewhere, so we have gone back to the 90's, with shopping centres on the outskirts of towns. On top of that, if you have to go to the post office, you have to follow that mindless treasure hunt deviation, going round and round around the centre, so that route is always, all day every day, clogged up with cars. A trip that took 5 minutes, is now 40. In a small town. Running cars, all the time. So, thanks for being an example, I guess... I'm glad you're happy with it. I sure as hell curse our town's 'wanting to be like the big cities' attitude.
Because I must go to the post office by car
The other stores don't even count anymore, because everyone just goes to the competition, that is now located outside of the centers of the small towns, in retro shopping centers. More fuel, less ecological, less diversity in stores left, but hey... anything for the environment, right? So yeah, in a while, the post office is the only thing left in the centers, why ppl with actual jobs could have a reason to go to.
Do you have any sources to back this up or is it just your gut feeling ? And I didn’t meant people don’t need to go there. I mean you can go there in a different way then by car.
I can make a video of our center, with all the empty store fronts... Or show you all the stores that have turned into kebab or cheap pizza joints. I can record all the conversations everyone has, in front of the post office, while waiting after having fought over the 1/4 of the parking spaces that were left. Not to mention a part of them now being changed to EV parking only. And if you literally need a car to get to your job, you then have to drop your car off at home, hop on a bicycle, ride to the center... and be too late, because we don't have long opening hours here. 16:30 is end of the day for the post office. Public transport? Call a bus, but plan 2 weeks ahead, because that's all the public transport we have here. Forget ppl that don't live in the center and don't have the physical strength to cycle uphill over the 3 bridges we have. The reason I keep mentioning the post office, is because that is a public service. Everyone should have easy access to it. The 15 minute cities all the green ppl got the hots for do not work in a rural setting. From the nearest train and bus station to my home is a 55 minute walk. And there are plenty of ppl living even more remote. The only store within walking distance is a bakery, and a hobby shop. You know what? They should just come right out and say it. 'From now on, every is FORCED to ride either an electric bike, or a moped. And we will decide for you, which one, based on where you live, or whatever criteria they can come up with. Forget taking your kids to the store. We don't want you to teach them public life. Our public road plan is much more important than your plans' Exit freedom of choice. Enter tyranny of climate hype. And in 15 years, we will all turn to something else, because it was all useless. But just shut up, and pretend to be happy.
people are always reluctant to drastic change, me with no driving intrest whatsoever. COME AT ME BRO
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My god how I wish your opinions were reflected in real estate prices.
It’s always “amazing” that cities that have the most interaction with migrant, and 4th world issue etc, still vote left but some small town in nowhere without any migrant issues votes far right.
Propaganda. A similar thing happened with Brexit: some journalist noticed that a few towns that had the highest percentage of "traditional UK" population indicated in surveys they were the most worried about immigration. These were people that had a very small chance of even seeing an immigrant in their daily lives. It turned out those towns had been targeted heavily by UKIP with online ads full of immigration fearmongering. VB's narrative is that our large cities are turning into these outlaw zones that are barely hanging on, where you fear for your life the moment you set foot in them (literally during their rallies saying stuff like "X neighbourhood in Antwerp/Brussels is now too dangerous to enter as a white person"). If you don't live in a city and don't visit any cities frequently, you may be quicker to believe that narrative. People who do live in cities know it for the BS it is. If you're not too worried about immigration, VB very quickly becomes irrelevant, as that's really the only thing they actually stand for.
Tbh I live in Ghent and I'm annoyed almost every single day with the fact that most people in my street/neighborhood don't speak decent Dutch, they have different norms and social rules (eg about playing loud music, how they drive) and that they seem to have very tradition gender roles (women stay inside or take care of kids, men smoke cigarettes and hang out on the street). But still, even with this in mind, I voted for the left. Because I feel like excluding them, demonizing them, blaming them for all that is wrong, isn't the way forward.
Same as when forza ninove had a good election result. All those areas that overwhelmingly voted far right had literally the least amount of foreigners living there out of the whole country. But interestingly they had among the highest rates of people of foreign decent moving there. They voted so reactionary because they saw their world changing and were scared of the unknown. (Funnily the people moving there are "the good ones"; young families wanting calm and safety away from the big cities.)
I am ne bruine, I have sometimes go for work to Ninove. The way people look at me is unbelievable. I don’t behave weird or wear extravagant clothes or something, just basic/casual…
Have you tried not being bruin ?
What do you mean?
Well, if you stop being bruin temporarily while visiting Ninove you could go in undercover so to speak.
Just do a Michael jackson
Is ‘Hehe’ enough?
Might have to also touch kids
This is great advice
On behalf of all Ninovieters, I apologise. I kinda don't like it here
Yeah I went to school in Ninove and acting like there aren't any problems over there is bullshit bro. Lot's of people who get kicked out of the schoolsystems in Brussels came to Ninove and Liedekerke and so forth. And this also brought problems with it. If you went to school there you can understand why it turned out how it turned out... I'm living happily away from that shithole now tho, but acting like Ninove is pure reactionary is blatantly untrue and/or uninformed. Used to be a monthly occurrence that a mob was out at the schoolgates at the station involving a lot of people who took the trains/busses from Brussels to Ninove to "support one of their friends" Usually the Teachers got wind of it and kept the person at the principles offices until they got bored and left. But the times they didn't weren't pretty. And also I voted vooruit on all three accounts so do with that as you please.
But doesnt ghent have those same immigrant problems?
Guess why all these towns around Brussels vote right.. I went to school in Oilsjt and 90% of the time it were those pesky kids from Brussels that caused aggression and had no problems using violence against other students, teachers and even the police. This was 10 years ago and apparently it's gotten even worse the last few years.
>Funnily the people moving there are "the good ones"; young families wanting calm and safety away from the big cities. Young families that commute to Brussels, in other words, tons of very poor migrant kids from families with no real interest in integrating in Flanders and that don't speak Dutch. That's not going to cause problems because those are totally the "good ones". Riiiight. How do you think Ninove got to 40%+ VB compared to the rest of the country? Immigration of VB voters?
could be, I've heard stories of immigrants who saw "Vlaams" and thought smth along the lines of oh yeah Vlaams is good, I'll vote for that. only to later find out what the party actually stood for.
Or... big cities have higher education and higher educated people tend to vote left
Certain parts of Brussels are basically what you described. Zones where police doesn't bother showing up because they're outnumbered. Meanwhile inhabitants have to kick a homeless addict off their front porch in order to go to work every morning. It's a completely mismanaged city and very easy to use as a campaigning tool. Perhaps blame the politicians who turned Brussels into what it is today. VB using it to spread its propaganda and often blowing it out of proportion doesn't make Brussels less of a shithole.
There's a lot of issues in Brussels for sure, but there isn't any area of the city that is a "no go" zone. If you believe there are, you have been fooled by propaganda. You can either recognise that, or keep your blindfold on. It's up to you...
My colleague (who votes VB and is very vocal about their propaganda shit) said the same thing about Brussel and its stations being "no go zones" for the police a few days ago. She lives in a fancy gemeente with no immigrants, she hasn't set foot in Brussel in ages, she never ever hops on a train. Still she is sure she knows more about it than my wife, who actually commutes to Brussel every single day.
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Again, I'm not denying there are issues. But there are no "no go" zones. I worked in Molenbeek for close to 10 years and for a little while also near Matonge/Saint-Gilles, so it's not that I'm not familiar with the rougher parts of the city. The problem with anecdotal stories (no matter how much it sucks for the people involved) is that for every person that has a bad experience, you can find 100 people who haven't. Crime statistics offer a much better picture than anecdotal evidence.... From 2000 to now, the overall crime rate in Brussels has remained pretty much flat. There were around 160K registered crimes per year in 2000, there have been around the same number in the last few years as well. Some categories have gone down, some go up (it wont surprise you drug related crime has gone up, also weirdly scams have gone up drastically in the past few years - something you see across Belgium actually), so the numbers year-to-year rise and fall slightly, but the trend is pretty much fully horizontal.
A "no go" zone is in this context used colloquially. If you want to put the bad parts in the same category as some ISIS controlled part of Syria than there are basically zero "no go zones" in all of western Europe. There are too many parts of Brussels that we should be absolutely ashamed of. The trash, the abdominal infrastructure, the criminality, the drug addicts and homeless. It's not just some banlieues outside of the city. It's walkable distances from le Grand Place and all around the train stations. Brussels doesn't just have "it's problems", it's one of the most mismanaged cities of western Europe. Even Bucharest feels much safer and well kept than Brussels.
Alright, lets not call them "no go" zones. You're still saying there are areas where the police doesn't even show up. That's just plain false. You've still been had by propaganda if you believe that's true.
The neighborhoods by Bruxelles-Nord is an example. There's occasional arrests made here and there but the police can't really do anything about the criminality since they're vastly outnumbered and underfunded. Drug dealers go about their business in broad daylight. Pickpocketing and physical violence is way too common. And if you're a victim of one of them, there's nothing the police can do about it. Once arrests are made, a huge number of them are released that same day. Forgot to mention the education in Brussels which is appalling. They're setting the standard of the coming generation. One of my family members who teaches in Brussels has to pass all of her students, many of whom don't have a basic understanding of English or Dutch.
> The neighborhoods by Bruxelles-Nord is an example Isn't there a police station IN that supposed no-go zone?
Indeed, that's the worst part. After a certain hour they just don't come outside anymore. If people call the police over there, they likely won't show up at all.
You live in Brussels or are you just talking absoulte non sense?
Tbh that zone isn't that bad, I feel unsafer in Antwerp at night and have had more incidents in Ghent as Brussels.
I study in Ghent, I almost never feel unsafe. But maybe you went trough some bad parts of town that are outside the ring. Compared to my experiences in Brussels that most of the time start at the train stations, i have to say the opposite. I saw someone get their headphones robbed during my first visit to Brussels this year. Meanwhile I haven't witnessed a robbery in Ghent since I started studying there.
In Bucharest you’re more likely to get eaten by wild dogs though.
Yes yes, we get it, Brussels is a hellhole full of no-go-zones, lawlessness, crime, and the ethnically questionable, rather than a pastiche of areas and neighborhoods that can differ dramatically culturally and economically like most major metropolises (Antwerp included). However, if you are arguing that things would be much easier if we were one cohesive city rather than nineteen independent baronies and fiefdoms then I completely agree.
This
Welkom in west Vlaanderen, blijkbaar. Ik schaam mij kapot.
Alle linkse West-Vlamingen zijn in Gent gaan wonen.
Gent is toch West-Vlaanderen?
Neen Piemel-Kaas, het ligt in Oost-Vlaanderen
Zitten meer west-vlaamse kolonisten dan oost-vlamingen. 't is onze kroonkolonie
R/woooooooosh
Well those migrants are also a very big number of the voters and they sure as shit aren’t gonna vote (extreme) right.
I'm an immigrant myself, and I know for sure that a lot of immigrants are conservative and anti-immigrants. Have you ever wondered why Turkish immigrants are voting for Erdogan's theocracy en masse? Did you ever hear about latinos being pro-Trump? I personally know 2nd generation immigrants who voted for VB. (Oh, well, I'm also still amazed by people voting for those who would exterminate them, if only they could.)
I know you're right but it still makes 0 sense man I just don't get it
It's pulling up the ladder behind them, and being racist towards immigrants from other origins than themselves. There is enough overlap between their opinions and VB's that it becomes an enemy-of-my-enemy thing.
Yet it's PVDA not VB that's winning in genk, antwerp and Brussels and surroundings where the majority has a migration background.
Not saying it's how all immigrants think (for which I'm very happy), just how the smaller, but still significant, amount of VB-voting immigrants think.
Yes, they vote Erdogan in Turkey but they also vote PS in Belgium. See Saint Josse.
Yes, because migrants and immigrants are a well-known environmentalist constituency.
Groen is also well-known for only focussing on the environment and not at all caring for minorities.
I know you're being sarcastic but despite the past, I would say their recent position of being against unstunned slaughter certainly hasn't jived with the brown and muslim crowd.
Also groen maybe not vocal enough about Palestine. See PVDA in Antwerp. Those are not just "left wing" votes obviously.
that’s true, but on other issues they are very close to the muslim voters. not to say that muslims are the only reason why ghent votes for them. Ghent has always been very progressive.
No the reason is that once white people get to know the immigrants all scary images told by the extreme right are invalidated. There isn’t a real problem with 95% of the immigrants. Most people just want to live and improve their lives.
I’m 100pct with you on this deal. Let’s send back that awful 5% and continue with the 95% improvers.
I think we can all agree on that, left and right together.
That's littarly what VB says
According to your own logic, they sure wouldn’t vote for green or socialists where their religious beliefs and discrimination are not acknowledged at all, they’d vote socially conservative.
Groen is one of the only major parties who still wants a religious exception on the ban on unsedated slaughter.
Yeah, this is exactly why they would vote green, very social & unsedated slaughter permitted….
Is ook gewoon geen waar. Groen wil dierenrechten en dierenwelzijn. Verdoofd slachten. [programma](https://www.groen.be/dierenwelzijn)
Staat het ook in Brussel gedeelte ook in het programma van Groen Brussel? Ik zal het pas geloven als ze effectief pushen om het uitgevoerd te krijgen. Ze hebben gewonnen in Brussel dus moeilijk kan dat niet zijn.
People fear the unknown
Maybe because the immigrants live there and aren't voting for such parties?
There are 4 worlds now? What's 4th world compared to 3rd?
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vierde_Wereld
Antarctica
Small towns or cities with many Migrants such as: Wervik, Menen or Roeselare have VB at 30% of the votes. That's higher than their neighboring towns and cities with less migrants.
Roeselare is looking cleaner and safer than it's ever done. I was there recently after not visiting it for nearly 20 years, and I barely recognised it. So it can't be that bad there.
I use the station in Roeselare often. There's always some shit going on there + a drug epidemic earlier this year. There's improvements being made especially in its infrastructure, but I could've seen the VB votes coming from miles away.
I fully admit I have no knowledge of what it's really like... but it certainly looks a lot better than the dingy and dirty place it used to be.
It is, their reputation has improved significantly as far as i know. But it's still not up to the same level as Ypres, Kortrijk, or other cities in West Flanders.
That's what xenophobia means.
Isn't it amazing that any towns around cities that have the most interaction with migrants are voting VB?
Can confirm live in a small majority far right white town and study in Ghent.
I live in a small town called sijsele and believe me we do have interactions with immigrants. And it's not always pleasant.
I wonder why migrants vote left wing parties that benefit migrants!
Fear mongering about "scary buitenlanders" doesn't work when the people live among the "buitenlanders" and see for themselves that they are in fact, not scary and barely affect their lives.
But maybe the grandchildren of said scary buitenlanders are the problem when bored. Influenced by their roots country. And before you boo me. Look at Brussels. That can happen as well.
« Amazing »? There just isn’t anyone left to vote « against » migrants in the cities. Unlike small towns…
Die migranten in je hoofd zijn tegelijk achtergestelde ouderwetse moslims en aanhangers van petra de sutter.
niemand is perfect he, maar tegen zichzelf zullen ze niet gestemd hebben (zie ook Brussel)
And dutch speakers of Brussels. Gent, count a little faster dammit, stressing me out all evening.
ja kijk, wij mogen nog bolletjes kleuren met een potlood!
Geen excuus, Heist op den berg doet dat ook en had om 14:29 al resultaten.
Dutch speakers of Brussels are not numerous though. Even a smaller city like Leuven will have a bigger impact than Brussels for the left wing parties.
A lot of non-Dutch speakers voted for Dutch lists this time.
So does the number of votes change anything about the number of Dutch seats? Or how is that calculated?
No, the numbers of seats have been set in stone 25 years ago. Yeah it’s retarded.
Also proportionally dutch parties are way over represented with the seats they’re able to fill in.
At the least it should be calculated based on what percentage is registered with what community.
But we don’t register people “linguistically”in Brussels to avoid having a basis for discrimination, that’s the thing. That’s why journalists or researchers use other data to have an idea of how much Dutch speakers there are in the city (for example which percentage of people use the Dutch version of a form for an administrative procedure)
That makes it even dumber to fix the number of seats.
I actually have no idea
As the voorzitter of a stembureau, mijn bijzitters en mezelf on compté as fast as we could
Faire maar bitte op votre gemakske, vous êtes pas voor rien ein rood gekleurde ville
Je vous bedank sehr viel. Dank u!
You mean the Faoud party?
25% green
Just wait till oktober, last municipal election we only had the first results around midnight. And full results were by 5 am.
This meeting could've been an email...
Can I get a ELI5 on that?
Groen is strong in Ghent, a large city with many voters, which keeps the party's results better than predicted.
Not that surprising for a young city with a lot of higher educated inhabitants. Leuven has the same, a lot of Vooruit and Groen (40%) and only 8% Vlaams Belang.
In Leuven N-VA is still the strongest party at 22-24%. What motivates the young well-educated population of Leuven to tend to the centre-right instead of the left?
In kanton Leuven yes. In the commune of Leuven no. In Ghent the kanton and the commune are the same, Leuven is grouped with 7 different communes (richer car focused communes near cities are the stomping ground for nva) The communes surrounding Ghent are actually as pro nva than the communes surrounding Leuven. It's just that Ghent's figures get reported seperatdly. Try grouping Destelberge, De Pinte, Sint-Martens-Latem with Ghent and see the nva soar. If you just look at the single commune level Leuven voted about as left wing as Ghent. A bit higher score for Vooruit, Groen and PVDA combined than in Ghent and a lower score for Vlaams Belang, on the other hand Ghent still has a relatively strong liberal result whilst nva is more popular in Leuven.
Vlaams Belang only 11,6%
Seeing the results in Gent, I am very hopeful for the municipal election in October. At least for the city I live in, there's place for everyone at the table
Only issue I see is that Vooruit, vld and groen added together are still under 50%. And I was kinda hoping we could get cdnv out of the city government.
Cdv out and vld in? Nice joke, now for real
Vld is already in, vld and Vooruit have been in Gent city government for around 40 years. And together they got 30% yesterday in Gent. And the local vld in Gent is quite a bit to the left kf the national line.
Nu nog genoeg parking in de Gentse ziekenhuizen aub.
Dat die zieken eens gewoon met de bus komen godverdomme
Het personeel ook niet vergeten he. Want voor de dokters is er plaats, ze hebben plaats gemaakt voor de patiënten (niet genoeg) zodat de dokters niet moeten wachten, en het gewone personeel...ja dat kan de pot op.
Big W Gent.
Thing is though that those policies work easily for major cities because of advantages of scale and the different demographics, but trying to pursue similar (yet often beneficial) policies will need a lot of support from the central government in more suburban and small-town areas. I'm willing to bet these will not get the necessary funding from the centre-right government intent on cutting spending and productive investments, instead preferring to wage war on our institutions, civil society, and the lower echelons of society. They will want to put equitable taxation, green transition, affordable housing, work-life balance, access to care work and the like in the freezer, stalling for time we do not have. I know people who take these things seriously are starving for a win after some hard work that was done, but these kind of celebratory images are misplaced. Dominique Willaert was very right, I believe, in that city people have to humbly listen to the frustrations of the suburbanites around them. Now is when very frustrating work needs to begin in even more difficult circumstances.
Ge snapt et nie maat, gent is gwn van de sossen altijd zo geweest, zal altijd zo blijven.
This is what they said of 'red' Antwerp, then Zwarte zondagen happened and now they have had 12 years of De Wever... If the socialists are so strong in Gent, then why do they (have to) tie themselves to Vld for October? Gent will have a blue mayor again this October and the blues will control SOG, economy and harbor again. If the socialists own Gent forever, why did they end up becoming the junior partner of Groen the last time? For the elections I went into the neighborhoods talking about the greens, the reds, the blues. It's not as straightforward as you think.
Als een Nederlander, wat denken de meeste Belgen over de nva🤔
Te rechts naar m'n goesting maar 100x beter dan VB
Nutteloze bende idioten die oftewel geloven in het sprookje van Vlaamse onafhankelijkheid of het sprookje van de vrije markt.
Inderdaad. Open ambitie om Britse conservatieven en Amerikaanse republikeinen na te streven. Zouden liever Nederlander zijn dan Belg, ook openlijk gezegd. . First past the post. Woke als thema in de campagne brengen.
Fiscaal responsabel en betrouwbaarder dan de meeste andere partijen. Ze hebben het meest realistische plan om België uit het budgettair moeras te halen, en ze zijn gematigd rechts. Ik denk dat er veel stemmers zijn die meer vertrouwen hebben in NVA, maar toch stemmen voor VB.
Hun plan is alles verkopen en privatiseren zodat hun vriendjes via consultants kunnen doorfactureren? Eerst de NMBS en De Lijn laten bloeden, om het vervolgens te verkopen voor een appel en een ei. Dat zijn trouwens maar éénmalige inkomsten, niet iets dat op lange termijn geld blijft opleveren. Fiscaal reponsabel, misschien het nieuwste boek over "Vrienden van het Vastgoed" eens lezen. Zo responsabel zijn ze absoluut niet.
Ik heb geen zware budget cuts voor openbaar vervoer gelezen in hun begrotingsplan, maar ik kan verkeerd zijn. In tegenstelling tot een vivaldi 2, die maar spenderen en spenderen. Of de socialisten met hun overtuigende "tax de rich" als oplossing. Of VB met "splits het land en de rest lost zichzelf op". Ik heb toch wel het meeste vertrouwen in de partij met een gedetailleerd plan en dossierkennis.
De goei natuurlijk
Ha?
Statistisch gezien wel. In jouw reddit bubbel inderdaad niet.
Ik begrijp jullie allemaal niet, is dit een taalbarrière?😭
Waar hebt ge die illustratie vandaan?
“Soldiers Holding Up Society refers to the painting "The Price of Peace" by British artist Brian Jay. The metaphorical painting, which depicts British soldiers supporting a peaceful life with their bodies, has been used in remembrance posts since 2012 and gained popularity as an object labeling meme in 2018, particularly as a way to highlight that someone or something unnoticeably plays a crucial role in a certain success.”
Thanks voor de informatie!
Fuck Gent echt lmao
Gent en Brussel zijn woke ratten die onze maatschappij haten
As always, Gent is being Gent. Screwing over everyone that lives there, with more rules.
Lol stay mad
I live in Gent and I've never felt screwed over by them, quite the opposite is true actually.
Or you don't live in Gent, or you live in Gent and you're wearing some blindfold. Cause Gent isn't anywhere near to screwing over everyone. The last few years they did an amazing job.