ABSTRACT

The city of Antwerp is the main economic centre and the largest city of the Region of Flanders. Antwerp owes its international character to a rich cultural-historical past and its favourable situation in north-western Europe, which has also enabled the port to develop into one of the greatest of the world. Economically, the Antwerp region is the pivot of Flanders. The stagnating Antwerp economy and the worldwide tendencies that put urban positions in jeopardy, by the end of the 1980s gave rise, in Antwerp as in other cities, to increasing demands for a long-term vision. The Strategic Plan for the Region of Antwerp has sprang from the widely accepted and long-confirmed vision that Antwerp has to develop into the European transport and distribution centre of North-West Europe. The necessary condition of cooperativeness on the level of the functional region is not met in the region of Antwerp, at any rate as far as administrative collaboration is concerned.