Metropolitics - Metropolitics

From the Field

Fighting for Retreat after Sandy: The Ocean Breeze Buyout Tent on Staten Island

Liz Koslov - 23 April 2014

On October 29, 2012, Staten Island, a borough of New York City, was on the front line when Hurricane Sandy ravaged...

Debates

The Localism Act in London: institutionalising urban divisions

Justinien Tribillon - 16 April 2014

By decentralising planning powers to local communities, the British Conservative government claims that they are...

Essays

The effects of Thatcherism in the urban North of England

Mark Bailoni & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 April 2014

The economic policies of Margaret Thatcher’s governments polarised not just opinion but also whole swathes of the UK....

Essays

For cities of a different nature

Jérémy Grangé & Sylvain Petitet & translated by Oliver Waine - 26 March 2014

City-dwellers want to see more of their metropolitan areas turned over to nature and urban public spaces; however,...

Reviews

The importance of the neighborhood in Chicago and elsewhere

Eliza Benites-Gambirazio - 19 March 2014

The latest work by Robert Sampson, released to positive reviews, shows the sustainable effects of internal social...

Reviews

Ethnic discrimination in social housing

François Bonnet & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 March 2014

Valérie Sala Pala has investigated the extent to which ethnic criteria come into play in the allocation of social...

Essays

The sustainable metropolis: when night enlightens day

Luc Gwiazdzinski & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 March 2014

The night-time, long a neglected dimension of the city, can no longer be dismissed. Luc Gwiazdzinski invites us to...

From the Field

Coping with crowdedness in mass transportation

Martin Aranguren & Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Oliver Waine - 26 February 2014

Riding overcrowded metros, tubes or subways with dozens of strangers in varying moods is routinely viewed as a trying...

From the Field

The world of the blue-collar worker: changed, but not gone

Julian Mischi & Olivier Pasquiers & Caroline Pottier & Nicolas Renahy & translated by Oliver Waine - 19 February 2014

Despite deindustrialisation and increasingly acute economic difficulties in the former strongholds of heavy industry,...

Essays

Could harmonised working times spell an end to the rush hour?

Emmanuel Munch & translated by Oliver Waine - 12 February 2014

Efforts to coordinate working hours across urban territories have increased in recent years. By exploring the...

From the Field

The burst bubble and the privatisation of planning in Tokyo

Raphaël Languillon-Aussel & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 February 2014

Since the early 1990s and the collapse of Japan’s asset price bubble, developments in Marunouchi – Tokyo’s main...

Reviews

Gentrification in Paris: the elite versus the people?

Colin Giraud & translated by Oliver Waine - 29 January 2014

Anne Clerval’s latest work on the gentrification of Paris, published in September 2013, caused quite a sensation in...

Reviews

Social housing in New York

François Bonnet & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 January 2014

Is high-rise public housing doomed to demolition? A book and article by historian Nicholas Dagen Bloom, focusing on...

Essays

Migrant Destinies

Sylvaine Bulle & Laetitia Tura & translated by Oliver Waine - 15 January 2014

Although borders are often invisible, they govern people’s right to move freely, as well as clandestine migration...

Essays

Soundscape Revisited

Élise Geisler & translated by Oliver Waine - 8 January 2014

Research on the subject of the landscape reminds us that it does not just engage us visually, but that all our senses...

Reviews

The intricacies of popular housing in the Middle East

Mona Fawaz - 18 December 2013

Reviews

Henri Lefebvre for architects

Grégory Busquet & translated by Oliver Waine - 11 December 2013

Although Henri Lefebvre is well known for introducing the concept of “the right to the city”, his work is little used...

Reviews

The March for Equality and Against Racism: the “Migrants’ May 1968”?

Muriel Cohen & translated by Oliver Waine - 4 December 2013

Abdellali Hajjat looks back at the event that went down in history as the “Marche des Beurs” (“Arabs’ March”), and...

Reviews

Catholics, sociologists and the city

Frédéric Dejean & translated by Oliver Waine - 27 November 2013

Far removed from the habitual image of a Church incapable of dealing with the de-Christianisation that has...

From the Field

The mixed success of Toronto’s metropolitan merger

Guillaume Poiret & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 November 2013

While the debate on local-government reform rages on in France, Guillaume Poiret looks back at the municipal mergers...

Essays

The future of planning?

Simone Abram - 13 November 2013

Rather than looking at the designs that planning promises, anthropologist Simone Abram prefers to consider planning...

From the Field

The metropolisation of “Roma Capitale”: the view from the Tiber delta

Aurélien Delpirou & Dominique Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine - 6 November 2013

Far from the stereotype of the “sleeping beauty”, the Italian capital is the scene of an important and unique...

Reviews

Migration and globalization: a tragic tale

Olivier Thomas & translated by Oliver Waine - 30 October 2013

At a time when flows of capital, goods and information are increasing, more and more material, ideological and...

Reviews

Beirut: the city beneath the surface

Céline Barrère & translated by Oliver Waine - 23 October 2013

The geographer Éric Verdeil distances himself from the dominant analyses that constantly depict Beirut as a “city at...

From the Field

Gentrification as a driver of social and racial tensions: the case of Brixton

Amélie Bertholet & translated by Oliver Waine - 16 October 2013

(In)famous for the various riots that have occurred there since the 1980s, the working-class district of Brixton in...

Debates

The poetry of the urban landscape

Émeline Bailly & translated by Oliver Waine - 9 October 2013

The ideal of “nature in the city” is a key characteristic of many urban projects. Émeline Bailly shows that the...

Essays

Racism: a blind spot in French urban sociology?

Élise Palomares & translated by Oliver Waine - 2 October 2013

Why has the analysis of interethnic relations been so long ignored by French urban sociology? For Élise Palomares,...

From the Field

Post-industrial cities: towards a new approach

Max Rousseau & translated by Oliver Waine - 25 September 2013

While anglophone urban studies have sought to critique the way capitalism has developed, the French social sciences...

Debates

The grandeur and decadence of the suburbs

Violaine Girard & Jean Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine - 18 September 2013

Periurban areas emerged in the 2000s as “new” spaces indicative of recent changes in French society – the weakening...

Essays

Is it possible to write a history of urban knowledge?

Stéphane Van Damme & translated by Oliver Waine - 11 September 2013

Historian Stéphane Van Damme puts the origins and foundations of urban studies into perspective, highlighting the...

All articles

Other resources online

Partners