Since the mid 1990s (Hôtel Central) Brussels has been the focus for new innovative forms of collective action. Long before the development of any political program, abandoned sites – vacant lots and isolated blocks – became a stage for artistic or cultural activities. This process spawns alliances rather than representative federations. In short, a cultural milieu for urban action comes into being, a reaction to the hesitation of other more institutionalised urban milieus. These constructs refer to notions such as User, Creativity and Metropolis – and thus distance themselves from the notion of city, a legacy of the earliest urban movements, which the craftsmen-planners pieced together around Neighbourhoods and Residents’ Needs. Between alternative politics and urban animation, we have therefore to cease the issues of these transformations.