Luc Vanheerentals

VIENNA - The fact that Vienna was named the most liveable city in the world in 2024 for the third year in a row by The Economist is largely due to its generous social housing policy. The central question in this dossier is “what can Flanders learn from Vienna in terms of social, affordable housing”?

BRUSSELS - In the European Parliament, Vlaams Belang has a very different narrative than the social image the party wants to project in Flanders. Even in Flanders, by the way, this social narrative should be taken with a grain of salt.

LUXEMBOURG - Worldwide, public transport is already free, either fully or partially, in more than 275 cities and regions. However, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is an outlier, having become the first country in the world to make all trains, trams and buses completely free for both residents and foreign visitors on 1 March 2020.

BRUSSELS - The flip side of pharmaceutical companies' staggering profit figures is that the marketing for their products is incredibly important. Dutch research shows that pharma even spends twice as much money on this than on the development of new drugs. In this study we examine to what extent and in what way health information in the professional media is influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.

LEUVEN - One consequence of Leuven being an expensive city to live in is that many people are forced to move elsewhere. The City Monitor showed in 2017 that 15 percent of residents had plans to do so. No less than 56 percent cited financial reasons for this.

LEUVEN - The European Commission gave Leuven the prestigious Green Leaf Award 2018 for its climate policy and, in its motivation for naming the city the European Capital of Innovation in 2020, referred to 'inspiring governance models' for getting residents, businesses and knowledge institutions to participate in that policy. However, Leuven's excellent climate performance is not evident from the figures of the past decade.