From Decline to Urban Renaissance : 1945–2016

Recent history has proved decisive for Liège and its region. Like other large cities, Liège has had to adapt to many economic and social changes, to upheavals in traffic flows and relocations, to transformations in building and planning. Incontestably, these changes can be grouped in two main periods: between 1950 and 1975, and since 1995. In contrast, between 1975 and 1995 an unprecedented economic crisis hit Liège and its region, the general deterioration of the public finances stopping or greatly delaying its projects.
We analyse these developments through a few important topics, focussing on major events, processes or actions that mainly occurred after 1980, thereby extending two excellent summaries by José A. Sporck (1980 and 1986).