ABSTRACT
For about two decades, the city of Antwerp has been the stage for creative co-operation between civil society and local authorities in the field of urban development (see Loopmans, 2008). In 1990, the Neighbourhood Development Corporation BOM-Buurtontwikkelingsmaatschappij launched an innovative Integrated Area Development (IAD) strategy to abate social exclusion, first in the North-East Antwerp neighbourhood and, later, in the South Edge and Canal Zone, where it acted as local project developer and facilitator of relationships between different actors, projects and funding institutions. BOM also prepared one of the first Neighbourhood Development Plans in Flanders and, towards the end of its trajectory as an independent development agency, designed and began to implement a socio-economic renewal strategy for the Northern Canal Zone. Through its initiatives, BOM succeeded in putting deprived neighbourhoods on the political agenda and having the quality of its socially innovative approach recognised by institutions at various spatial levels (EU, region and city).
