Resisting gentrification. Socio spatial dynamics of three work places in Brussels

An association working around the production of a biannual parade. A polyvalent organisation operating at the crossroads of culture and economy. A cooperative for entrepreneurs and precarious workers. The three of them are situated in some of the poorest neighbourhoods of Brussels and involve the renovation of former productive sheds. Their contribution looks crucial to bring back work into the city and into those areas that have been most affected by the deindustrialisation processes that started at the end of the 1960s. While in the long term they may engender a gentrification process, the three of them are aware of this risk. Despite not defining themselves as social operators, they nevertheless could allow resistance to it by embedding in the local urban fabric, reshaping and renewing urbanity—although in very different ways and as part of very different strategies, in the case observed here mostly centred on redefining the relationship between work and life. Based on a research-by-design exercise, the paper will explore under which conditions new forms of working, new approaches to productivity, and the related spatial dynamics could counterbalance potential gentrifying effects associated with the improvement of problematic parts of the city.