Northern France, Belgium and a bit of Germany by a Yank

[600West218]

What are the qualifications for getting social housing? No job? Very low income? Do you pay no rent at all for it or just lower rent?

In the US such nice public housing would be criticized as giving people an incentive not to work.

[joshsam]

Originally Posted by 600West218

I agree. But at least the graffiti I saw was of good quality - quite good quality as a matter of fact.

When I first came to New York the subways were entirely covered in graffiti. Most of it was terrible but some was quite good. For years even after it was gone tourists used to come to New York hoping to see all the graffiti on the subways and would often express disappointment when it was gone.

Brussels and Charleroi in particular took me back to those days

In that case you'll like the Kapellekerk/ Bruxelles-Chapelle trainstation in Brussels. Almost no trains stop there and it's covered in graffiti.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edsfbe8mlas

or this tram station http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uPso...eature=related

[joshsam]

Originally Posted by 600West218

What are the qualifications for getting social housing? No job? Very low income? Do you pay no rent at all for it or just lower rent?

In the US such nice public housing would be criticized as giving people an incentive not to work.

I searched it down for you for Flanders:
-Older than 18
-Yearly taxable income lower than € 29 694- € 22 879 (note that taxes in Belgium are higher than 30%) (+ the number of income depends on differend social funds that builds the housing and ofcourse also on how many kids you have... This number is for one person with no kids). (To compaire: the average Fleming has a yearly taxable income of 38 000€)
- You need to be a citizen (obviously)
-Speak Dutch or willing to learn
-You have no other property of your own.

There is also a lot of criticism on that. Just giving people a home...Giving them a minimum wage , free healthcare, scholing,..... I think it does make people lazy and I think there are a bunch of people that don't do effort to find a job and just like to life on the wellfare state.

[Puinkabouter]

In Belgium, renting a social appartment still means renting, you don't get it for free, but it costs less than a similar apartment on the private housing market.

Last summer I worked for the largest social housing company of Belgium (Woonhaven Antwerpen), as a photographer, documenting all the buildings they own. One summer wasn't enough, I barely managed to photograph half of them... But the job really helped to see that social housing is a concept that doesn't preclude visually interesting architecture. Sure enough, Antwerp has its share of dull grey concrete tenement buildings, but some of the prettiest post-war areas of the city consist mostly of social housing too.

Alois de Laetstraat, Kiel



(On the left) Stuivenbergplein, Antwerpen-Noord

Those are social housing complexes too, and I'd say they are among the most valuable 20th century landmarks of the city.

[De Klauw]

Originally Posted by Puinkabouter

In Belgium, renting a social appartment still means renting, you don't get it for free, but it costs less than a similar apartment on the private housing market.

Indeed. But the government also provides a minimum wage large enough so that unemployed people can live in a social house. So there are indeed many people in social houses without jobs.

Anyway: off-topic.

[Buffalo Soldier]

Originally Posted by 600West218

I agree. But at least the graffiti I saw was of good quality - quite good quality as a matter of fact.

When I first came to New York the subways were entirely covered in graffiti. Most of it was terrible but some was quite good. For years even after it was gone tourists used to come to New York hoping to see all the graffiti on the subways and would often express disappointment when it was gone.

Brussels and Charleroi in particular took me back to those days

In my opinion, Brussels does have some good graffiti, but majority of it is rather uninspired (but of course this is true for 99% of graffiti in the world), I saw much cooler things in France, to be honest.

[Buffalo Soldier]

Originally Posted by De Klauw

Anyway: off-topic.

Indeed, let's not turn this fantastic Photo-thread into a political one

[WC_EEND]

Originally Posted by De Klauw

Anyway: off-topic.

On another offtopic note, it seems half the Be Forum is following this thread

[600West218]

Day 1 in Ghent.

Today I was to travel to Ghent. That might seem out of order given that I was later to travel to Lille and then back to Brussels and Charleroi but my hosts in Lille were available on the weekend so first I went to Ghent so that I could save Lille until the following weekend.

To get to Ghent I had to catch a train to Lille (a high speed TGV) and then a local train from Lille to Ghent. I had 15 minutes to get from Lille Europa to Lille Flanders to catch the other train.

As my train left early from Paris I took a cab to the Gare du Nord which is a nice, if unspectacular, train station.

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Still more Haussman buildings

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9:46 to Lille, that’s me!! I have to say, I really love travelling by train. It is so much better than the US where everything is by plane. There is no security to go through and you get to see a lot of interesting countryside.

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The high speed train. One thing is though when you are gently watching the countryside go by and all of the sudden you pass another train - wow, it really wakes you up.

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I got to Lille and sucessfully found the other station and made the transfer.

Pulling out of Lille Flanders station I saw this:

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Not sure if these are Gypsies are regular people in difficult circumstances. They’ve had articles in the New York Times about some people in France living in trailers due to inability to afford proper housing.

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Some of the suburban housing I saw from the train going into Belgium.

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Some of the towns between Lille and Ghent looked fascinating in their own right. Old industrial places with factories and canals. Some place called Kotrick looked particularly interesting. But even though I had to go there many times to change trains I never got out and explored.

Also, between Paris and Lille a major change occured. In Paris the buildings are largely biege or tan in color (all the Haussman buildings) and it has sort of a southern European feeling. But once you got to Lille most everything was red brick buildings with lots of row or terrace housing. It definitely had a northern European feeling and much of what I saw in places like Lille, Ghent, and Charleroi could easily have been in Liverpool, Machester, or Leeds.

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The St. Peters train station in Ghent.

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As I wasn’t to meet my host until later I went out to explore.

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Walking out of the train station you run smack into some funky looking trees and what seems like 20 million bikes.

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Hope their owners remember where they parked.

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Ghent had lots of trams

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Maybe a super tall under construction?

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ok, these modular rooms I saw at many construction sites. I couldn’t figure out what they were. They are way too big simply to be for the construction management - for that you only need one trailer. Someone mentioned they might be to house workers who come from other countries to work on projects. I don’t know.

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ok, seriously, if you parked in the middle of that how do you ever get your bike out.

Later my host told me that many people simply grabbed whatever bike was available - he had three bikes stolen.

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BTW, that housing in the background would be called Victorian if it were in England. Not sure what it is called here.

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Is this Manchester or is this Ghent? It is Ghent. But it could be lots of places in England. Loved these buildings.

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Walking into the city you pass a large and rather nice park with some very friendly ducks and geese.

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This apparently was a high school. I think some form of alternative high school.

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This was a very interesting looking momument. It seemed to be dedicated to some sort of uprising. Even my host didn’t know what it was.

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Bikers everywhere. There really weren’t many pedestrians like me, just walking. Most everyone was in a car, in a tram, or riding a bike.

From the map I knew there were interesting looking canals nearby and I was trying to find them. Finally I found it.

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The canal boats tied up here all seemed to be used as houses.

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BTW, note that in the background of many of these pictures you can see construction cranes. I think it is hard to find any place in Belgium where you can’t see a crane.

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I guess these people are vacationing from the Netherlands. It must be awesome to have one of these as a home and be able to travel all over France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. I think you can make it to the Black Sea with one of these.

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Here the canal splits - notice the “road” sign!

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Liverpool? Ghent? If you didn’t look at the license plates of the cars you could be confused about where you were.

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Not such a great looking ambulance.

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I spent a couple of days having no idea what these signs were that were everywhere. Turns out they are signs for parking garages and it tells you if they are full, have space, or if they are almost full how many spaces are left.

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Even the people who live by the canal have lots of bikes.

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There were some modern buildings along the canal.

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A very nice and innovative way of making a wall

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You can tell there used to be more industry here in the city proper.

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I think this was an old industrial building converted into lofts.

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More modern apartments which seemed quite nice.

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Next I came to this canal lock.

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It was operational and there was even a building with a lock keeper there. When he saw me wandering around on the lock he came out and though he didn’t speak much english made it clear I needed to get off the locks.

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This seemed like a small abandoned canal. Then again, maybe it is just for drainage.

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This was interesting - there were these little earthen berms about 4 feet high around. It looked to me like maybe at one point they were for flood control. But no one I asked knew.

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Never did figure out what this thing is. Anyone know?

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BTW, Ghent is a HUGE university town and I think most of this “working class” housing is now used by students.

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A half way decent looking fire truck.

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There was a nice little botanical garden that I passed on the way back to St. Peters station. If I recall correctly there was a planeterium too.

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The strange tree again.

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This explanation might have been more helpful if I spoke Flemish.

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I do love the bay windows. They make the buildings look so much more interesting.

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By now I wandered back to the train station where my CouchSurfing host was picking me up. After being taken to his home I would continue exploring Ghent, a bit closer to the city center.

[openlyJane]

That 'strange tree' is a Monkey Puzzle Tree - see my earlier post!

Interesting tour of Ghent.

[joshsam]

Very nice wandering around. I like how you get to see non touristy stuff and you go where people actually live and have their homes You are right that most of those old homes have their chambers rented to students. Many of them, but surely not all, serve as individual student dorms and are private owned.

[joshsam]

Originally Posted by 600West218

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Never did figure out what this thing is. Anyone know?

It counts the bikers that passed by. I have also never seen that before in any other Belgian city. On the left it says last year 600.000 bikers passed by. On the right it says how many bikers allready passed by this year. Apperently around 300.000 On top is says you are the 4th biker today wich doesn't seem to be correct in any way :p

[WC_EEND]

Some place called Kotrick looked particularly interesting.

I think you mean "Kortrijk" Also, the tower you saw under construction will be 92m high when finished. see this thread for more info (Flemish only, but feel free to ask questions in English)

edit: never seen the bicyle passing meter thing before though

[Tchek]

much of what I saw in places like Lille, Ghent, and Charleroi could easily have been in Liverpool, Machester, or Leeds.

Certainly. Belgium looks kinda like the UK in many ways. Liège is even sometimes called "the Belgian Birmingham", "the Belgian Liverpool" or "the belgian Bristol".

[600West218]

Originally Posted by joshsam

It counts the bikers that passed by. I have also never seen that before in any other Belgian city. On the left it says last year 600.000 bikers passed by. On the right it says how many bikers allready passed by this year. Apperently around 300.000 On top is says you are the 4th biker today

wow, that is amazing. So I guess they are trying to use it to promote bicycling. I wonder how it counts the bikes? How would a sensor distinguish between a bike and a motorcycle or even a car?

[Puinkabouter]

Yay, home. I think you'll be getting a lot of feedback from here on

Originally Posted by 600West218

Maybe a super tall under construction?

It will reach 90 meters when finished. That's super tall to local standards. Only the belfry (95m) and the Artevelde Tower (119m) are taller.

Originally Posted by 600West218

ok, these modular rooms I saw at many construction sites. I couldn’t figure out what they were. They are way too big simply to be for the construction management - for that you only need one trailer. Someone mentioned they might be to house workers who come from other countries to work on projects. I don’t know.

You're right, they serve as housing for the guys who are constructing that tower. Most of them are Spanish or Portuguese I think.

Originally Posted by 600West218

BTW, that housing in the background would be called Victorian if it were in England. Not sure what it is called here.

I guess we'd call them Belle Epoque houses ("the beautiful era").

Originally Posted by 600West218

This apparently was a high school. I think some form of alternative high school.

When translated very literally, "Hogeschool" indeed means "High School", but it is more correctly translated as "University College" (ie. an institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full University status).

Originally Posted by 600West218

This was a very interesting looking momument. It seemed to be dedicated to some sort of uprising. Even my host didn’t know what it was.

Edmond van Beeveren was one of the founders of the Belgian Socialist Party.

Originally Posted by 600West218

Here the canal splits - notice the “road” sign!

Actually, this is the river Scheldt (or Schelde in Dutch). It's one of the main rivers in Belgium. It looks a bit underwhelming here but that's because the city is bypassed by a larger canal called "Ringvaart". It's the same river that flows through Antwerp.

Originally Posted by 600West218

You can tell there used to be more industry here in the city proper.

That's true. Actually Ghent was the first heavily industrialized city in mainland Europe - thanks to Lieven Bauwens, a spy who smuggled English steam engines into the country. Apparently in the 19th century is had the nickname "Mainland Manchester". Apparently it still is.

Originally Posted by 600West218

This was interesting - there were these little earthen berms about 4 feet high around. It looked to me like maybe at one point they were for flood control. But no one I asked knew.

Those berms have no function other than to separate different areas within the park from each other. They create a more intimate atmosphere.

[De Klauw]

Originally Posted by 600West218

Later my host told me that many people simply grabbed whatever bike was available - he had three bikes stolen.

Indeed. That's why you see so many old bikes in Ghent. Lot's of them aren't even locked. So basically they are a bit 'common property'. (not for real off course).

Originally Posted by 600West218

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BTW, that housing in the background would be called Victorian if it were in England. Not sure what it is called here.

Those houses are called 'eclectic' since they are composed of multiple styles. Houses of that type are typical of the late 19th century-early 20th century.

Originally Posted by 600West218

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This was a very interesting looking momument. It seemed to be dedicated to some sort of uprising. Even my host didn’t know what it was.

According to the plaque it's dedicated to Edmond Van Beveren, a prominent Ghent socialist.

Originally Posted by 600West218

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Never did figure out what this thing is. Anyone know?

It's a counter. It's says 'YOU ARE THE 4TH BIKER TODAY'. Although I don't think it's working properly since 4 is an unrealistic low number.

[600West218]

Originally Posted by Tchek

Certainly. Belgium looks kinda like the UK in many ways. Liège is even sometimes called "the Belgian Birmingham", "the Belgian Liverpool" or "the belgian Bristol".

Yup, and Ghent was called the Manchester of the Continent due to its being a big center of the textile industry.

The main difference between Belgium and Britain in this regard was a I saw a lot more active industry in Belgium than Britain. I'll show a lot of it in later posts.

[Helmet222]

Can`t wait to see your pictures of brussels and charleroi!

[600West218]

Thanks for all the information!! It is really helpful. It is good to learn what I was looking at.