Why there's an abandoned Ghost Town in Belgium
Vložit
- čas přidán 23. 11. 2023
- There is a small village in the north of Belgium. Doel is its name, and at first glance it is a town like any other: it has a church, a cemetery, a historic windmill - and a nuclear power plant right next to it. But in fact, Doel is anything but normal: Doel is a ghost town. Most of the houses are run down and abandoned - and almost nobody lives here anymore. How did that happen?
A film by Matthias Schwarzer.
--------------------------------
Did you like this video? Support my work on Patreon:
/ matthiasschwarzer
Or become a channel member on CZcams!
--------------------------------
▪️INSTAGRAM:
/ matthiasschwarzer
▪️FACEBOOK:
/ matthiasschwarzertrave...
▪️TIKTOK:
/ matthiasschwarzertravel
▪️CONTACT:
post@matthias-schwarzer.de
--------------------------------
Intro song:
MÆT - Start Again
Music:
Epidemic Sound
#doel #ghosttown #belgium #abandoned
Thanks for watching! Here's more you might like:
▪ The sad last days of a German Ghost Town: czcams.com/video/WWBgCnRwGqc/video.htmlsi=TGJWu6l6rEOKVY7I
▪ Weird border: Is this Germany or the Netherlands? czcams.com/video/jATA_9A-fWE/video.htmlsi=eEzQSYPAWwoCaf2w
▪ Why the Windows XP Meadow no longer exists: czcams.com/video/-M-6YCHIJtU/video.htmlsi=EPBndg7VpSftw4Je
Hello Matthias, great story again! I lived very close to Doel for several years for work and I'm quite familiar with the village and what happened to it.
As a small correction, the sign at 10:33 says "Wij wonen hier!" which translates to "We live here!", not "Welcome". They probably put up this sign as people entered and trespassed their property without permission because they thought the property was abandoned.
The plan for the harbor was that the village would be torn down and a dock would be built there. Residents of the village were initially offered the estimated resale value of their house +20~25% extra to encourage them to sell their house or property. Many people took the money and moved to towns close by Doel (towns like Kieldrecht, Zandvliet, Verrebroek, Berendrecht, Stabroek..). The people that refused the buy-out and stayed initially got criticized by the government, harbor and contractors for not allowing the expansion to happen. Over time they got sympathy from outside people, as you mentioned, and people started petitions and protests against the removal of Doel. The "Doel 2020" people see themselves as David fighting Goliath.
The people that do still live there are mostly older of age and have lived/worked there their whole life. Most of them worked in the port of Antwerp or companies close or related to the harbor. Nowadays it's not as easy to live there anymore, super markets aren't close enough, there's no school or restaurants.. it must be very tough to still live there.
From the other abandoned towns you mentioned some still exist; Lillo as a town is no longer inhabited but Fort Lillo (very small centre of the town of Lillo) still has residents living there and they have a small bar/café where the residents meet and talk over a beer. It even has a very small pier where residents have their private boats moored.
I read that the goverment changed its mind and the village will stay. So do you think it will be refurbished?
Its selfish to stay when you are offered such a good sum of money that these villagers were done, for once the government was kind.
And they are met with rejection still, this will only encourage government to offer no cash and send in the army and tanks, run your house over, because a few select people think they are better than everyone else. If this story was about the poor villagers being offered poor value, it would be sympathetic, but this is not the case.
5:11 on the bench it says "doel" and "loos" in graffiti. Doelloos is Dutch for purposeless. Very fitting, it seems
Well done.
I remember Doel from when it was still a more or less normal village. Over 20 years ago, we went on a school trip to the nuclear power plant
Nice shots as usual
Long time ago, i have been into Doel.
Some group of photographers decided a Urbex Tour, a group of them climbed over the wall and were gone that day. We didn't see them the rest of the day.
Only me and two mates decided to respect the town as it is. The thing is people still live there.
And we basically did the same what you did. Walk outside taking pictures of the art, church and so on.
The very danger of Urbex and we realised it very quick. Frontwalls can fall down, roofs are dellerict. So to go inside is gambling with you life
Tho I got one very good tip Matthias.
Did you know if you turn google streetview on, you go back in time? Buildings gone appear again.
The houses in Doel are almost as much filled with graffiti as a random house in Berlin! But not quiet as much, of course.
This is an awesome informative video! Underrated channel
Why do I suddenly want to live there?
It's easy: if it's cheap to get a land or a house there, people will move in.
Been there a couple of times! In the Netherlands we don’t have much abandoned places so that’s the reason there are a lot of Dutch tourists. It’s the closest abandoned place near the Netherlands.
The ride to Doel is indeed a wild ride haha, last ride I got a flat tire… 😅Anyway cool video and shots, thanks for sharing!
julliez in Nederland leven ook met 5.000.000 mensen meer dan nin Belgiè, daarom zijn er ZEKER geen verlaten dorpe, ohg ja de statushouders in Nederland hebben voorrang op een woning boven de native Nederlander
I visited Doel the first time in 2015. Back then those metal sheets over the windows and doors weren't installed yet and most doors had been forced open, allowing for a look inside of the houses. There was a danger of asbestos however because some of those houses were already falling apart on the inside.
6:28 This is part of history for most, if not all towns near the Belgian / Dutch (/ Belgian) border, by the way. Substiute Austria-Hungary for Spain if you have to.
As it seems the harbor will not be extended there after all, maybe it will be refurbished? It is close to Antwerp, after all.
and in a few months, years at most, there will be another government either in Flanders, in Antwerp, or at national level, that reverses course again and decides to tear it down anyway.
Not a good investment.
I'm personally of the opinion they'll just let it die a slow death by itself and then turn it into harbour. It's really in the midst of a gigantic industrial area and shouldn't be promoted for living circumstances tbh. Air quality of the surrounding villages is the worst in the country. I'd personally love to see it kept as a green zone, a bit of nature to counter everything around it.
That's the plan, but to be honest I can't imagine it being even close to liveable for a long time. As has been said before, the air quality is terrible, and the soil is probably not much better. Because the village has been forgotten for so long, there's hardly no public transport and the road connection to Antwerp is pretty bad, so it's not really an alternative to Antwerp. And it still looks like that, there is still a lot of refurbishing to do.
it reminds me a bit of the village of Heijplaat, part of the Rotterdam municipality. Actually the only thing it has in common is that it too is a village completely surrounded by port facilities, but it is not abandoned at all.
There's a "similar" city in France : Goussainville (the old city), it became a ghost town because of an airport nearby and the plane noise made many citizen leave before their houses were worthless (and there was a deal with the airport company who bought many houses).
But now modern airplanes are quieter so people are slowly coming back.
I think the Church refers to a church no longer in use as abandoned, so in this case ‘the church is not abandoned’ would be fine. You could also say the church is ‘still in use’. Or my instinct would be to refer to the church as ‘still in service’, as church services are still provided there.
I’m interested in local communities and I enjoyed this, thanks.
(looks at title) The reason a Ghost town exists is because it is abandoned
well yeah, obviously, but I think he meant it in the way of why was it abandoned in the first place?
If it wasn't for the Nuke stacks, it would be worth building a nice community and renovating a part for port workers. But because the government seems like a bunch of celebrity pandering jerks, who would trust them? People need some security in their future.
I'd rather live next to a nuclear power station than next to an international container terminal. Much cleaner, more safe, and far less noisy and smelly.
@@jwentingthere is not a housing crunch in Antwerp like many other cities.
It's in the middle of an industrial area. Air quality isn't the best...
"abandoned" - when did the ghosts leave?
Actually the expansion of the port was considered before WWII, there are some really interesting plans that survive from that period with one that could have cut off the now residential left bank of Antwerp by a broad canal with dozens of docks connected like the teeth of a comb.
are you sure its abandoned? it looks like any other village in Belgium.
If I didn’t know it was about a village in Belgium I’d have thought it was any town in the UK…
welcome to Belgian politics.
Tiny country with so much unnecessary complications 😅
Indonesia is so huge and real Indonesia is as wide as Russia, Indonesia is the true richest in the entire world, from world's biggest gold reserve, oil and gas are much more than the entire middle east, and so on.. aside world's richest spices and herbs, but very dumb eternal criminals Europe always scam the world including drawing Indonesia too small since Mercator projetion 1569, also claiming the Dutch brought the coffee, while coffee and so many other stuff are native to Indonesia.
There are so many criminality the west and middle east has been doing, nothing surprising with your endless karma.
The west belong to the medieval and will always be the true poor, real rich will never colonize others, colonization is brainless lowest intelligence action.