City profile: Ghent, Belgium

•The various phases of Ghent’s urban development read like a textbook on urban history.•The early industrial city developed within the straitjacket of the military ramparts.•The contemporary city has become a regional centre of industry, trade and academe.•Today, urban policy is received critically by civil society organisations.

The various phases of Ghent’s urban development read like a textbook on urban history. Emerging as a political and religious centre at the confluence of two rivers, Ghent developed from the end of the eighteenth century on into an important centre of the textile industry. Its independent attitude ensured that the city developed well into the nineteenth century within the straitjacket of the military ramparts, where both trade, industry and academe found fertile soil. After the city toll was lifted, the city boomed, while the seaport went through a new wave of industrialization in the mid-twentieth century. First the CIAM doctrine and later on the postmodernist approach has clearly left its traces on the urban fabric. Today, urban policy is received critically by civil society organisations, while on-going debates focus on the balance between tourism and habitation, on the architecture of the central squares, on bicycle facilities and tram lines, on the poor housing conditions in the nineteenth-century neighbourhoods, on the lack of greenery in the city and on the development of peripheral retail outlets.