Corentin

After having completed a master's degree in geography at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, Corentin Sanchez Trenado started a PhD at the Institute for Environmental Management and Land-use Planning (IGEAT), in 2017. His interests and research questions focus on urban and social transformations of city centres, and in particular on gentrification and urban renewal processes.

Research abstract

Although the maintain of productive activities inside dense urban areas is increasingly promoted as way of keeping local job opportunities inside Brussels Capital Region and reducing travel distance of both workers and products, the questions of which type of activities should be maintained and of how to integrate them in the city is still debated. However, depending on the type of activity considered, their impact on the territory can be diverse, both in socio-economic and spatial terms. Therefore, taking the meat sector as an example, this research aims to investigate the role of those activities in central working-class neighborhood. The main objective of this research is thus to evaluate to what extent these activities can be social, economic or cultural resources for the inhabitants of these neighborhoods, in a context of rising prices on the housing market.

In order to answer these questions, this analysis will mostly focus on the case-study of the slaughterhouse and food market of Anderlecht, in Brussels. The main goal of this empirical work is to understand the factors contributing or threatening the stability of this activity and to explore the multiple relationships connecting this activity with its neighborhood. On the other hand, this investigation also aims to evaluate how these relationships would be affected by the transformation project planned on the site.

To know more about Corentin's contribution in the framework of Metrolab: