housing

Debates

Rent control: a miracle solution to the housing crisis?

Jean Bosvieux & translated by Oliver Waine - 21 November 2012
The sharp rise in housing costs in France since the end of the 1990s has generated much debate on the subject of rent...
Reviews

Marne-la-Vallée: from new town to true town?

Laurent Cailly & translated by Oliver Waine - 31 October 2012
The redefinition of relations between a city’s centre and its outskirts is often described as the rise of a...
Debates

Participation and housing policies: a century-old phenomenon

Marie-Hélène Bacqué & Claire Carriou & translated by Oliver Waine - 24 October 2012
The recent renewed interest in participatory housing experiments is, in fact, linked to a much longer history that...
From the Field

(Re-)Inventing self-build housing in Strasbourg

Anne Debarre & Hélène Steinmetz & translated by Oliver Waine - 17 October 2012
In the world of alternative housing, Strasbourg is an important player. Here, Anne Debarre and Hélène Steinmetz...
From the Field

The Vertical Village: the long road travelled by a Lyon housing cooperative

Marie-Pierre Marchand & translated by Oliver Waine - 10 October 2012
The “Village Vertical” development that has taken shape in a mixed-development zone in Villeurbanne, near Lyon, is...
From the Field

Haiti after the earthquake: camps, shanty towns and housing shortages

Gerry L’Étang & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 May 2012
In Haiti, in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, public squares became the sites of makeshift camps to provide...
Essays

Quotas of foreigners in social housing: a legacy of the Algerian War? Les Canibouts, Nanterre (1959–1968)

Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard & translated by Oliver Waine - 11 April 2012
Was it better to concentrate or disperse Algerians during the Algerian War? In the course of the conflict, both...
From the Field

Housing the “harkis”: long-term segregation

Abderahmen Moumen & translated by Oliver Waine - 4 April 2012
The end of the Algerian War saw the arrival en masse of thousands of pieds-noirs and harkis in mainland France. From...
Essays

“Cités de transit”: the urban treatment of poverty during decolonisation

Muriel Cohen & Cédric David & translated by Oliver Waine - 28 March 2012
At a time of profound housing crisis in the 1950s, cités de transit were adopted as a means of rehousing Algerian...
Essays

The police and the “Algerian medinas” in France. Argenteuil, 1957–1962

Emmanuel Blanchard & translated by Oliver Waine - 7 March 2012
Fifty years after the end of the Algerian War of Independence, it should not be forgotten that this conflict was also...
Debates

Why isn’t there enough housing in France?

Jean-Claude Driant & translated by Oliver Waine - 11 January 2012
The idea that France is experiencing a serious housing deficit, requiring a massive home-building policy is the...
Debates

The difficulties of housing the Chinese “sandwich class”

Jie Chen & Bernard Vorms & translated by Oliver Waine - 21 December 2011
In China, young people from the middle classes are said to belong to a “sandwich class”: they do not have enough...
Reviews

The history of social housing revisited

Christine Mengin & translated by Oliver Waine - 30 November 2011
Since the end of the 19th century, how have residents’ wishes been taken into account by the public authorities...
Debates

Is rising home ownership bad for employment?

Jean Bosvieux & Bernard Coloos & translated by Oliver Waine - 9 November 2011
Homeowners everywhere are less mobile than tenants. However, does home ownership have a negative effect on...
Debates

Access to home-ownership: what are the effects of the economic crisis?

Bernard Vorms & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 April 2011
A 70% home-ownership rate? This is the stated objective of the reform that has recently come into effect in France,...
Debates

The Handicaps of Handicapped Housing

Catherine Carpentier & Emmanuelle Colboc & translated by Eric Rosencrantz - 13 April 2011
Since February 2005, all new and renovated housing in France has to meet standards of accessibility for the disabled....
Debates

Housing: for an act III of the decentralization process

Patrice Lanco & translated by Michael Stokes - 18 February 2011
Although housing has not been concerned before now by decentralization, the contrasted realities of local markets...
From the Field

The mayor, the developer and low-cost home ownership

Guilhem Dupuy & translated by Michael Stokes - 17 January 2011
At a time when controlling housing prices has become a national priority, a recent study carried out by Guilhem Dupuy...

Series

Horizons in the Housing Struggle
Black Power and Black Self-Determination in a New Time and New Spaces
Urban Wastes, Present and Future
New York Dossier: The Food Industry Faces the Covid‑19 Pandemic
Cities in the Age of Financialization
Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research
New York Tech Dossier: The Dark Side of New York’s Tech Economy
Progressive Mayors and Urban Social Movements
Land Rights in the Urban Global South

Featured

From the Field

Covid-19 Transformed New York’s Destination Food Markets

Ivana Mellers - 5 October 2021
Ivana Mellers analyzes how New York’s destination markets—key spaces of economic and social interactions—coped during...
From the Field

Moving Inside City Limits: The Urban Mobility of Undocumented Youth

Stephen P. Ruszczyk - 4 June 2019
The urban context and public transportation shape how undocumented youths move within cities. In a comparison of New...
Reviews

Filming Ethnic Diversity in New York

Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Christina Mitrakos - 21 October 2016
Frederick Wiseman’s fortieth documentary film, In Jackson Heights (2015), returns to an urban theme explored in...
From the Field

Looking Inward, Across the Border

Harel Shapira - 19 April 2016
In the constellation of anti-immigrant politics in the United States, groups like the Minutemen, civilians who patrol...
Essays

The Political Aesthetics of Drag

Shaka McGlotten - 13 October 2015
Drag, or the diverse art form and culture of performance that typically plays with gender and sex, is an integral...
Debates

Disarm the Police

Gregory Smithsimon - 29 September 2015
In the current political debates about discriminatory policing, there has been a lack of serious discussion of...

Other resources online

“Our hallway’s big enough to play football in!” The council housing...

The Guardian
Boasting two-sink kitchens, Tower Court in north London is tailored for the Haredi Jewish community – but its...

Saudi Arabia: How is Mobility Being Transformed in the Oil Kingdom?

Mobile Lives Forum
04 April 2025, by Aniss Mouad Mezoued The launch of the Riyadh metro in late November 2024 once again highlighted...

Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age (Paul Mees)

Mobile Lives Forum
27 March 2025, by Javier Caletrío Can suburbia avoid car dependence? Can low-density areas enjoy first-rate public...

Geopolitics and Electric Vehicles: The Rise of Climate Protectionism

Mobile Lives Forum
17 February 2025, by Xabier Gangoiti and Graham Parkhurst The electric vehicle (EV) revolution is not just a...

One Way to Fight Rising Food Prices: Public Grocery Stores

The New Republic
New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has proposed opening government-owned grocery stores as a solution to...

The Quiet Power of Car-Free Neighborhoods

CityLab
Restricting or banning vehicles in congested city centers pays off with cleaner air and safer streets. We need to...
Centre national de recherche scientifique (CNRS)
Journal supported by the Institut des Sciences Humaines et Sociales (Institute of Human and Social Sciences) of the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)

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