Transactional systems, territoriality and the example of Brussels :reflection on the notion of the economic base of metropolitan areas

Abstract

This article focuses on two geographical aspects of the interaction between the allocative and redistributive function of federal and local governments: first, the way in which household income activities depend on spatial conditions, and second, the manipulation of territoriality by higher income groups in order to pass the cost of supplying collective goods to bower income groups. The theoretical concepts of "spheres of economic integration" (Kesteloot) and of "regimes" (Terhorst and van de Ven) are used to examine the fundamental notions of the economic base and the metropolitan area. It is argued that the economic base cannot be reduced to tax-generating activities and that the metropolitan area should be conceived of as the territorialized habitat of households in spatial settings, rather than as a group of territorial communities, ruled by a two- or three-tiered set of local or federal governments