Like adverts, city shopping centres target an audience aged between 25 and 49: people with little time but enough money, who can quickly combine their weekly shopping with a spot of retail therapy, all in one place. But there are intruders on the scene. Loitering youths and… loitering older people.

The Urbis complex in Ghent South, on Woodrow Wilsonplein and Kuiperskaai – opposite the new city library – was, in 1994, one of the first large shopping centres in the heart of an old town. Its construction met with widespread protest because significant interwar buildings were demolished to make way for it and the design was hideous. Nevertheless, the complex was relatively successful. With one unforeseen consequence: it soon became the favourite hangout for loitering youths, particularly on Wednesdays. That term had only just entered common parlance, just like the equally elusive word ‘nuisance’.