Whatever the outcome of the October municipal elections, no less than three mayors will be disappearing from the Flemish Rand’s political scene in 2019: Dirk Brankaer from Overijse, Eddie De Block from Merchtem and Marleen Mertens from Grimbergen.

Wim Distelmans. Josse De Pauw. The pair of them from the same year. They both followed their own paths. And look where they ended up. Far from the beaten paths. Closer to their true selves.

Something of a fixture in Zaventem, the Gezinsbond has almost 450 members and carries out a dozen or so initiatives every year.

The Flemish Rand differs from an average Flemish municipality owing to its higher population density, growth and diversity. Nor is the surrounding infrastructure the same as in a non-urban context.

The Flemish Rand abounds in small municipalities, including those with language facilities. These entities are struggling to keep operating efficiently owing to the growing number of tasks they have to contend with.

La Placette in Wezembeek-Oppem is the oldest cohousing project in the Rand.

Mobility and living together are the key challenges facing the Flemish Rand. There is no real sense of a Rand identity, although there is some cohesion in sub-regional areas such as the Druivenstreek (Grape-growing region).

Classes where everyone in all their diversity can be themselves. Where teachers have the right teaching skills to turn this diversity into an asset.

Under the NMBS’s new transport plan, the Rand will be provided with additional trains on the S-net, starting from 10 December.

Socially vulnerable families will soon be able to count on the support of a student ‘buddy’ thanks to the Buddy aan de wieg project to be launched in December by the Huis van het Kind in Asse and the Erasmus School of Higher Education in Brussels.

Eager to roll out an extension and modernisation process, the Brussels Airport Company (BAC) has developed a strategic vision to decide where Zaventem Airport should be by the year 2040.

‘Flemish people are rightly proud of their identity, their history and their language. But maybe it is time to show some flexibility in certain situations? Especially when it comes to helping people who really do need assistance.’ That is Maria Urbina’s vision of how she would like things to be.

Traffic flows within 19 Flemish Rand municipalities are being assessed in the light of information gleaned from in-car GPS systems or smartphones, with a view to identifying and preventing overflow traffic.

Relations seem to be changing for the better in some municipalities with language facili-ties, thanks to the arrival of a younger generation of French-speaking politicians. However, appearances are often deceptive.

In the coming months we will be giving people who live in Rand the opportunity to ex-press their opinions. People from different backgrounds, in the hope of being able to present a broad and varied picture of how the region will be within 10 years.

What does fate have in store for the Rand? What sort of region do we want? As part of the Visionary series of articles, RandKrant will be talking to a number of people over the next few months to find out their ideas about the future of the Rand.

In Drogenbos nearly twice as many people die of heart and vascular diseases as in Kraainem. Where you live in the Rand and your position in the social and economic pecking order have a huge impact on your health.

Mindful that living in the Rand is an expensive business, the Flemish Authorities decided in 1992 to set up Vlabinvest, an investment fund tasked with trying to offer affordable housing.…

More than 30% ofoffice buildings in a radius of 12 km around Brussels is empty. That works out at nearly half a million square meters ofoffice space. The situation is particularly dire in Zaventem, where 75% of all Rand offices are established. The vacancy rate there is about 40%.

The choice is between an intense development of the area to the north of Brussels or pressing on with the green belt policy of the last 50 years. The first option is being plumped for in a mission statement recently issued by Ruimte Vlaanderen (Spatial Planning Department Flanders).

Schemes to boost the capacity of the Brussels ring road have been floated since the 1990s but the Flemish Mobility Minister Ben Weyts (N-VA) is now committed to getting the work started in 2019. The programme may take 10 years to complete.

The number of Dutch-speaking children attending schools in the Flemish Rand is falling in both the primary and secondary education systems. The level of Dutch is also on the decline.

Flemish Brabant is set to have a net zero carbon footprint by 2040, according to the provincial authority, citing a study to confirm the plan's technical and social feasibility. Towards this end, the municipal authorities are being called upon to achieve a 20% cut in their CO2 emissions by 2020.

The Ghelamco construction company's plans to build a new national football stadium on what is now the Parking C of the Heizel complex in Strombeek-Bever has caused quite a stir…

A school infrastructure capacity monitor has been developed by researchers at KU Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven) and the VUB (Free University of Brussels). This instrument is designed to evaluate the primary…