Brussels: Tracing the Agglomeration

The paper explores Brussels and its past territorial makings while, at the same time, explaining the methodological implications of micro-empirical work. It draws on recent academic endeavours such as environmental history, political ecology and the Los Angeles School. It highlights the intricate power-relationships of actors and matters in the shaping of a city. But it has also a very clear connexion with the interactionnist Chicago School and the work of AMO, with the organic as well as the generic city, which, both, emphasise the thickness and undetermined character of social relationships, of urban patterns and of the more systemic workings of a city. The paper will thus show how empirical tracings, based on archival research, allow to unveil the macro and to discover, i.e. to follow step by step, the vectors of urban unity without using any theoretical or historical shortcuts