Charleroi, from Industrial to Urban Extractivism: Towards an Alternative and Citizen-Based Urban Diagnosis

For the past ten years, Charleroi is the stage for an ambitious metropolitan project, initially launched under the impulse of Paul Magnette with the “Charleroi Creative District” operation and continued by the current mayor, Thomas Dermine. Supported by the Walloon recovery plan and the European CATCH program (with over 140 million euros invested), this project aims at economic, educational and urban renewal, intended to address the city’s loss of attractiveness and demographic decline. However, behind this narrative of rebirth lies another reality: that of a city being transformed without the input of its residents. Their lived experiences, local knowledge, and capacity to co-construct Charleroi’s future are largely absent from a process in which urban space is once again placed at the service of the market. This presentation proposes to read Charleroi as a paradigmatic case of post-industrial urban extractivism (Raquel Rolnik), where derelict sites become the new resources to be exploited—not for their materials, but for their land and narrative potential, at the expense of their capacity for social emancipation. Drawing on the work of Kevin Lynch and Jean Pouleur on the gap between the “lived city” and the “projected city.” Through a concrete case study, adopting a perspective that directly questions the practices of representative and neoliberal democracy, this contribution asks: how can we construct an urban diagnosis that enables another vision of the city—one that is inclusive, democratic, and ecologically sustainable? International examples, such as Raquel Rolnik’s work in São Paulo or citizen mobilisations in Valparaíso, will serve as sources of inspiration. They show that critical, participatory, and situated tools can support the development of an alternative diagnosis—one that fosters territorial reappropriation. Under such conditions, Charleroi might, perhaps, become a robust city—by and for its inhabitants.