Brussels is the most hated city in Belgium and the European Union. The capital of half a billion Europeans conjures up images of decay, poverty, chaos and bureaucracy. "It's like a hellhole, declared Donald Trump. But Brussels is also the unsuspected hotbed of utopias, urbanist experiments and Great Social Vistas. Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto there, Salafists are brooding there on the establishment of a religious holy state and the eu is building the most ambitious political project since World War II. Brussels also proved to be a haven for dissident iconoclasts and artistic freebooters such as Charles Baudelaire, the greatest Brussels hater of all time. Some dreams changed the world, others fell apart on the Brussels cobblestones. In Brutopia, Pascal Verbeken follows the trail of dream chasers. He explores European salons and slums, listening to thinkers, homeless people, prostitutes, political leaders and newly washed-up planners. Verbeken magisterially leads the reader manner through this history of Brussels dreams, exposing the contemporary soul of this mysterious city.