Torkel12

Municipality of Namur, Belgium

Economy

Historically, the development of the town was made along an East-West line: along the Sambre River, there were a lot of activities like textile factories and breweries. This axis lost its importance with the building of the train station in the North in 1843. That explains why the current major line of the town is a North-South line: to bring commodities between the train station and the port of the Sambre and Meuse rivers, which are located on the southern part of the town. In short, the train eventually took the place of the boats. From the beginning of the industrialization era, unlike some other cities such as Liège or Charleroi where there was strong industry, the town took a tertiary function such as administration, education or retail. This is due to the absence of coal in the subsoil.

Urbanisation

History

Before 19th century

We can distinguish two steps in the city's urbanisation: before and after the 19th century. Before the 19th century, the town extension was completely included within the city wall. Each time the city wanted to extend, the inhabitants had to build a new wall. This town had been built originally as a military town, in-between the Rhine river and the North Sea. The first inhabitants established in Namur on the Grognon during the Roman era. However, the first important city wall, which surrounded the Grognon, was built between the 9th and the 11th century.. In the centuries to come, the town took a political function and extended itself on the other bank of the Sambre river. The second and the third fortifications were built from the 12th to the 14th century. In addition to its military and political function (the County of Namur), the town also had a religious function. Indeed, at the beginning of the 18th century, many churches stood in this Episcopal town, which was defended by 9 forts. We can still currently see the fortifications that Vauban built on the Citadelle. The road pattern dates from the Middle Ages but most of the houses have been destroyed and rebuilt. This pattern of small and narrow roads is easily visible in the Old town. We can nowadays principally find luxuary shops, restaurants and cafés in this part of the town.

After 19th century

During the 19th century, the last fortifications were destroyed and the basis of the transport network were built, which gave a star-shape to the agglomeration. However, this shape appeared only in the seventies, when most people could afford a car and be independent from the train stations for their travel. From this time, urbanisation developed along the five main roads: Chaussées de Louvain, de Liège, de Marche, de Dinant and de Charleroi. The current urban space of Namur is broadly due to the past events: first, a very dense urbanisation (as we still can see in the old town) due to the limited space inside the city wall. Secondly, with industrialisation, the city walls are destroyed and we get more space: the streets are larger, straighter and planned. The first problems of congestion arose during the 1960s. The political response was to deflect the traffic to the boulevards that surround the town but it is not enough: in the 1980s, more and more cars could access the town easily thanks to the building of the nearby motorway. One purpose of the Chaussée de Louvain was to facilitate the access for the cars coming from the motorway to the Leopold Square, at the entrance of the town. Today, we can still count 30,000 cars a day at this roundabout. One of the first arrangements made to encourage pedestrians to come into the town was in the old Namur, which has been a pedestrian zone since the 1970s. Some others have been implemented, such as the speed limit at 30 km/h in all of the Corbeille (the area bounded by the Sambre and Meuse rivers on the Southern and Eastern part, and by the railways on the Northern part) and the creation of a Zone de Rencontre on the rue de l'Ange, where the speed limit is 20 km/h and the pedestrians are allowed to cross the street without the presence of zebra crossings. The neighbourhood of Bomel, North of the train station, is a good example of revitalisation. Before World War II, this neighbourhood was at the boundary between the town and the countryside, which made it a perfect location for a slaughterhouse. In the second part of the 20th century, there was a big urbanisation in this district and the slaughterhouse was abandonned. Nowadays, Bomel is only residential and the municipality wishes to revitalise it by building a new cultural centre. Moreover, the old constructions are going to be renovated. Nowadays, even if Namur is the capital of Wallonia, it remains a small town. Indeed, it is possible to walk from one part of the town centre to the opposite one in less than 15 minutes and, concerning the buildings, it is very rare to see high-rise buildings; the architectural trend is to build appartments of 3 or 4 floors maximum. Even supermakets are smaller compared to the ones in France.