Vlezenbeek

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Vlezenbeek is a village in the Pajottenland and one of the four boroughs of Sint -Pieters -Leeuw in the province of Flemish Brabant. The village has 3324 inhabitants (as of 31 December 2007).

Economy

The Flemish community Vlezenbeek has retained largely their original rural character. Even today, a majority of the area is used for agriculture, mainly as pasture for dairy cows or growing corn. In the field of Vlezenbeek also the small nature reserve lies Zobbroekvallei. On the territory of the municipality, however, companies such as the Chokolatier Neuhaus or the Lambicbrauerei Lindemans have settled. With the support of public funds in 2008 a research center for medicinal herbs and edible plants was built. Every year in October in Vlezenbeek held a large market, in which offered mainly animals such as horses, ponies, rabbits and poultry.

Population

The municipality of Sint -Pieters -Leeuw is purely officially Dutch-speaking, but houses a small French-speaking minority.

Boundary layer

The eastern boundary of the area of Vlezenbeek also forms the border between the province of Flemish Brabant and the Brussels-Capital Region.

The municipal boundary is also a cultural and linguistic dividing line, which plays an important role in the real life of the community. While there is linking the rural and largely Dutch-speaking Vlezenbeek on one side of that line is beyond the limit starting a business park that belongs to the municipality of Anderlecht in the Brussels Capital Region. In addition to the University Hospital Erasmus / Erasme there are also big box stores like Cora or Decathlon and some prefabricated buildings. Beyond this commercial area runs in a north -south direction, the Brussels ring road. Behind the motorway, it is characterized by large urban development and a high proportion of immigrants, mostly French-speaking Anderlecht.

A large part of the population Vlezenbeeks works in Brussels. Therefore, and due to the pinhole-like transport connection between Vlezenbeek Brussels and it comes on weekdays in the morning usually traffic jams on the main street of the village, by post. Before senior Islamic feast days many Muslim residents Anderlecht come to Vlezenbeek to buy local farms lambs.

Vlezenbeek located in Pajottenland and belongs to the so-called Flemish border around Brussels. In Vlezenbeek as in many other municipalities in the Flemish periphery there is a fear that the majority of French-speaking Brussels is proliferating and could be lost so the original character of the village. Several parties and citizens' groups are advocating for preservation of village and Flemish character of the community.