Campus and city
The defining feature is Louvain-la-Neuve itself — a town purpose-built from the 1970s after the French-speaking university was expelled from Leuven, deliberately designed to be entirely pedestrian (cars routed underground) and centred on the university. It is one of Europe's most distinctive student towns: compact, walkable and overwhelmingly young, with an intense communal 'kot' culture, student-run kots-à-projet, and the legendary annual '24 Heures vélo' festival. Daily life is French-speaking and inexpensive. The trade-off is scale and isolation — it lacks the size, diversity and amenities of Brussels or a major city, which some students love and others find limiting.