Units

Applied geography and geomarketing

The research led by the team focuses on spatial planning and its relations with the economy and regional social structures.  The team also indirectly studies environmental issues through the analysis of landscapes and of regional structures, in urban as well as rural environments.  These analyses are also used for educational and tourism purposes through the collaboration with the Royal Belgian Society of Geography in the production of thematic guides.  The unit also extensively studies industrial and tertiary structures at different scales.  In the field of urban studies, the unit focuses on housing, renovation and rehabilitation policies and their social impacts.  The team also pays particular attention to the issue of development and land use plans at local and regional scales. In addition, the unit produces transport network analysis.  The geomarketing team within the unit works in the field of retail and services geography.  The cell contributes to the understanding of social and economic spaces and of spatial planning through its analysis of the spatial consequences of economic policies regarding retail trading, the hierarchy of retail nodes in the city and the characterization of commercial structures.  Typologies of the Belgian statistical units regarding demographical, socio-economical and landscape characteristics are made on a regular basis.  Theses analyses are used in various studies and applications, including by other services of the university (sociology, public health...) and by private companies.  Finally, over the last several years the unit has developed numerous studies in political and electoral geography.  It also takes part in European networks studying spatial planning.

Projetcs

Analysis of land and estate markets.

Creation of a land and estate data bank at commune level starting from the real estate classified ads (Walloon Housing Observatory). Analysis of supply on the land and estate markets of Wallonia (and Brussels) in terms of price and volume.

Electoral geography of Belgium and Europe.

Systematic analysis on a very thin spatial scale and mapping of the Belgian and European electoral results on the basis of the parties belonging to different political groupings.

Comparative studies of the big European cities and modelling of the urban phenomena.

Socio-economic analysis of the European urban spaces. Comparison between the big European cities as to boundaries and spatial structures by developing comparable indicators on a very thin territorial scale. This resulted in the ''European cities Atlas''

Analysis of the regional socio-economic structures and their relationships to the investment dynamics.

Analysis of the relationships between the sub-regional investment dynamics and the social, economic, entrepreneurial and political structures.

Land planning in Belgium and in Europe.

Analysis of the relationships between regional economic development and land planning in Belgium. Study of Wallonia's strategic plans. Thematic mapping comparison and transversal analysis of the structure plans of the 5 regions making up the Euroregion. Analysis of the sub-regional and cross-frontier solidarity areas.

Economic geography of Belgium and Europe.

Macro-geographic analysis of the shaping and the evolution of the Belgian and European spaces based upon the use of exhaustive data bases on employment and added values