Vilvoorde, a town in Flanders, Belgium, near Brussels,was one of the first cities in Europe to live through the new industrial expansion of the late 19th and early 20th century.This proved to be as much a curse as a blessing, squandering the town with industrial buildings. Most of them are torn down by now, a few have been protected as a site of industrial archeology and a grim reminder of the past.

Recently, the city's economy has been rebooted as the television Hollywood of Belgium.It is not the first time the city has raised from its ashes.It developed from a crossing place at the Senne river of a 3rd century Roman road between Castellum and Tungri . There is supposed to have been a Roman farm on the fertile ground near the river, a villa, though today only a tumulus, a Roman grave, remains of these times.The crossing ("fuordo") near the villa gave its name to the town, first mentioned in the late 8th century as Filfuordo. In 1192 it was declared a free city by the Brabant duke Hendrik I, and continued to prosper into the next centuries. Through the Senne river, the town had access to the port of Antwerp, and exported a good quality of woolen cloth.
Due to it's central location, it developed into a military headquarters during the 14th century. Even though it lost some importance to the city of Brussels, it retained an economic weight. As a result, the city could welcome Protestants in the 16th century without much repression of the authorities.

The city lost significance, but regained momentum under Austrian rule by the digging of the canal from Charleroi and Brussels to the Rupel river.Essentially, it replaced the narrow Senne river with a very modern wide water road, that gave Brussels its own port, most of it on the Vilvoorde territory. The port has remained to this day.In the 19th century, the first railroad on the European continent was built between Brussels and Mechelen, passing through the city.The area between the Senne river, the canal and the new railroad, welcomed new industries who could take advantage of this unique crossroad of modern communications. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the railroad net was extended with local private lines, giving access to even more areas in the town.The working class population increased accordingly.

It gave birth to a hard-boiled breed of socialism, a branch of the left-wing, almost anarchist Brussels chapter.By the end of the sixties, however, the prosperity dream was over and the town collapsed. Again. In 1997, another deadly blow came to the town when the large assembling plant for French Renault cars was closed, pushing 3,000 workers and several other small companies out of work. A new plan to develop service industries has been recently introduced.