Madeleine de Cruz: Ghent

A Cultural Visit to the City of Ghent

In December 2019, I was invited by Exeter Culture to visit the Belgian city of Ghent in order to explore the city’s culture and, in particular, to discover what makes it one of Europe’s most environmentally friendly cities. Having caught the Eurostar to Brussels, I made the short train journey to Ghent and arrived in the late afternoon in a cold but beautiful city. What struck me first were the trams running in all directions to and from the station. Impressively, Ghent has a wide network of trams that are clean and easy to use and will take you across the whole city for a small fee. I bought a ticket and hopped on a tram that took me to within 100 metres of my hotel.

The public transport in Ghent was a real highlight of the trip and a major factor contributing to Ghent’s environmentally friendly status. The inner city of Ghent, which is where I was staying, is a low emission and pedestrian zone. This area is completely car free and provides a fantastic place to walk about and explore all the local culture, food and historical landmarks without any air pollution or traffic. This car free zone was implemented in April 2017 and has changed the way nearly all the residents of Ghent move around the entire city. The residents have embraced alternative transport methods, such as bike sharing, even in zones where cars are permitted. There are now 40% fewer cars on bicycle priority streets than before the scheme, this has led to a huge improvement in Ghent’s air quality. In addition to their car free zones, Ghent has created a scheme for pedestrian streets where between the hours of 11am and 6pm, certain specified streets are strictly reserved for pedestrians and these streets are completely traffic free: no cars, no taxis and no cyclists. Ghent has plans to increase the number of ‘pedestrian streets’ in the summer months. Initiatives like car-free zones and pedestrian streets are leading the way in pushing for city centres to become more environmentally friendly. Ghent also offers those with limited mobility free rides in small electric buses. This is a fantastic idea that uses environmentally friendly technology while giving everyone the opportunity to explore all that the city has on offer. The success of these schemes is hugely encouraging and shows that with the determination to do so, cities can become eco-friendly and have an excellent standard of air-quality. I believe, with the right backing and by following Ghent’s example, Exeter could achieve a car-free zone in and around the city centre.

Later in the evening, I ventured out of my hotel to visit the Christmas Market and to explore the many vegetarian options the city has to offer for dinner. Ghent is known as the vegetarian capital of Europe and it did not disappoint: there were so many vegetarian options and a number of exclusively vegetarian restaurants. On the first night I sat out and ate pizza at a restaurant overlooking the Christmas Market and considered how welcoming and friendly the people of Ghent had been since my arrival.

Another food highlight of the trip came the next day when I went to the highly recommended vegetarian cafe, Le Botaniste. I popped in just as they were opening and had an organic coffee and cake. The whole vibe of the cafe was relaxed and easy going. Ghent has for a long time, been known to have an exciting vegetarian scene. One of the most impressive vegetarian campaigns being run in Ghent is ‘Thursday Veggie Day’. The campaign was created by one of Belgium’s biggest vegetarian organisations, Ethical Vegetarian Alternative (EVA). The aim of Thursday Veggie Day is to encourage personal health as well as having a positive impact on the environment. The campaign was endorsed by the Mayor of Ghent in 2009 and the city has not looked back. The campaign has received lots of media attention and Thursday Veggie Day is now one of the unique selling points of Ghent. On a local level, the campaign has received mainly positive reactions with awareness of the effect of meat consumption on personal health and the environment increasing. In addition to Thursday Veggie Day, on the Visit Ghent web page there is a helpful list of vegetarian cafes and restaurants for tourists to explore, with a breakdown of the vibe and types of cuisine the location serves. With the uptake of veganism and vegetarianism increasing, I think it would be a great move for Exeter to build upon its small vegetarian scene to become the vegetarian capital of the South West. Not only would this be beneficial to the environment, but it could also build Exeter’s eco-tourism. For Ghent, its status as the vegetarian capital of Europe has openly encouraged tourists to visit and I see no reason as to why Exeter cannot achieve this either.

After the visit to Le Botaniste, I walked across the city to attend the Socially Engaged Universities conference set up by the ERASMUS Programme, which included people from cities across Europe to discuss the culture of their city and the challenges within it. In the afternoon, there were a number of breakout sessions discussing the various issues and schemes within their different cities. I attended a session on the project of making the city of Parma a bio-district. This session was being run by Filippo Arfini from the University of Parma and was a real highlight of the conference. During the breakout sessions, there were some interesting discussions on how you can encourage people and businesses to become interested and passionate about making their city more environmentally friendly. The consensus was that creating partnerships and opening lines of communication were key to ensuring success. Filippo’s main point of discussion was the necessity to create a partnership between the producer and the consumer. By creating a real relationship between consumption and production, consumers became more aware of where their produce was coming from and the negative impact it was having on the environment. From this increased awareness, consumers started to express a wish to purchase more sustainable meat and by working as a partnership, the producer adapted their production to become sustainable. Filippo expressed that these lines of communication and partnership were key to ensuring the success of the growth of sustainable meat production/consumption in Parma.

I believe the lessons taught at this breakout session can be related to Exeter becoming a more vegetarian friendly city. If more meat consumers across Exeter can create a relationship between their consumption and the production of the meat, there will be increased awareness of the negative environmental impact some meat production has. This is turn, as it did with Parma, should lead to an increase in the appetite for sustainable meat.

On my final day in Ghent, I attended a tour of Ghent’s impressive new library, De Krook. This striking building was the highlight of the trip for me personally. The library offered a near futuristic look at the many things a public library can offer a city. In addition to books, there were reading classes being run, electric pianos for people to practise on and regular concerts. The library felt alive with creativity and it was exciting to see how many people were using the space. 

De Krook

As my visit to Ghent came to a conclusion, I reflected on how impressive a city Ghent is. Its dedication to the environment was displayed throughout the city and made me feel positive about how, with the drive to do so, cities across Europe can also aim to be more environmentally friendly. Overall, what was most striking about Ghent was their drive to try new and innovative ideas, such as with De Krook. The city saw that their old library was dying and something new and drastic was needed – the building of De Krook was risky but the results speak for themselves: thousands of Ghentians now use the library daily for studying, music and numerous other activities. This passion for adaptation is what I think makes Ghent stand out as an exceptional European city.