Introduction

It is now a matter of fact that the spread of neoliberalism around the globe over the last three decades has been responsible for mounting social inequalities within and across national boundaries (see, for example, Landais, 2007; ILO, 2008; OECD, 2008). If only focusing on Western economies, numerous accounts provide detailed documentation connecting trends of rising income and broader social well-being inequalities to the wide range of political-economic neoliberal reforms enforced since the mid-1970s. Evidence in this respect brings out notably the role of these reforms in the gradual breaking of the post-war Keynesian social compromise, the steady fall in the share of unskilled workers and concomitant upswing in the share of skilled workers, the rise of mass unemployment as well as the general reduction of organised labour organisations’ bargaining power (see, for example, Harvey, 2005). How these trends of rising social inequalities translate in changing urban socio-spatial configurations should be a basic underlying issue in any discussion of the meanings, politics and realities of ‘social mix’ in cities. Yet, in Brussels just as in many other cities, mainstream debates on social mix(ing) appear largely dissociated from any considerations of increasing social or spatial inequalities. The bulk of policy and media narratives tend rather to naturalise the desirability of social mix as a prime policy goal at whatever scale, hence depriving the notion of any proper political dimension and further inserting debates on urban development in the realm of the ‘post-political’’ (Swyngedouw, 2008).

Looking at the Brussels case, social mix appears today as an undisputed policy ideal. As the plan régional de développement (regional development plan, that is, the city's main master plan) puts it:

However, the profusion of policy and media narratives unambiguously putting forward the desirability of social mix(ing) offers a general sense of social romanticism, which for these discourses appears at odds with the harsh realities of a ‘divided city’ wherein the distribution of wealth among social classes is highly uneven – and increasingly so (Kesteloot, 2000; Loopmans and Kesteloot, 2009).