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The article reports on the construction of elite residential complexes in Brussels, Begium during the 18th to 20th century, with specific reference to studies on urban coherence and the importance of investments in the sector.

This article discusses the process by which urban planning is accomplished. Contrary to popular belief, the conception of metropolitan areas as being "perfectly planned" around a single, central area followed by concentric and equitable outgrowth around it is a myth. Instead, the growth of urban centers is characterized by a widely disparate and chaotic process which sees it taking over other diverse population centers that were never part of any formal government policy of expanding the area. Historians must take this dynamic into account in their studies of urban life and people. The specific case of Brussels, Belgium is examined.

Abstract: The Seneque/Riverstrahler model has been used to explore the effect of human-induced changes in drainage network morphology and land use on organic and nutrient pollutions, for the last 20years and back to the 1890s and 1790s. With the development of human civilization, past environmental constraints differed compared to today. Research has sought to reconstruct (i) point sources (domestic and industrial), using statistics and archives from these periods, and (ii) diffuse sources via landscape and riverscape analysis based both on maps and agricultural statistics from the periods concerned. This study shows that a maximum of pollution occurred in the 1890s at the height of the industrial period, due more to the industrial load than to the domestic load. This substantial organic and nutrient pollution might have lasted up to very recently, when the Brussels Northern wastewater treatment plant began operation in 2007, significantly reducing the organic and nutrient load of the Zenne River, returning to a background pollution level assessed herein for the 1790s before industrialization expanded. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]