Metropolitics - Metropolitics

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...

Reviews

The role of proximities in improving territorial governance

Lise Bourdeau-Lepage & translated by Oliver Waine - 10 July 2013

What can be done to improve territorial governance? André Torre and Jean-Eudes Beuret emphasise the role of proximity...

Debates

Will local-government reform in London involve or abandon its citizens?

Martine Drozdz & translated by Oliver Waine - 3 July 2013

While the current financial crisis has compromised local authorities’ ability to deliver municipal services, the...

Reviews

La Défense: the Planning and Politics of a Global Business District

Matthew Wendeln - 26 June 2013

La Défense, Europe’s largest business district, is the outcome of a singular mix of state planning, architectural...

Interviews

Professionalisation, gentrification and welfare reform: 20 years of socio-spatial change in London

Manuel Appert & Anaïs Collet & Chris Hamnett - 19 June 2013

The 2008 financial crisis called time on a long period of economic transformation in European cities that has seen...

Debates

The Negotiated Urbanism of Grand Paris Express

Lara Belkind - 12 June 2013

In the fragmented context of Paris’s metropolitan and regional politics, the Grand Pari(s) design consultation and...

From the Field

“Soft densification” in Canada

Anastasia Touati & translated by Oliver Waine - 5 June 2013

Against the backdrop of a housing crisis, a number of local authorities in Ontario, Canada, have developed policies...

From the Field

Pedestrians, cars and the city

Cédric Feriel & translated by Oliver Waine - 29 May 2013

Pedestrianisation and the ability to get around the city on foot are key considerations in contemporary projects for...

From the Field

Château Rouge: a “Little Africa” in Paris?

Marie Chabrol & translated by Oliver Waine - 22 May 2013

The Château Rouge area of Paris is regarded as an “African neighbourhood”. But what is the reality behind this image?...

Reviews

Haussmann: from modernity to revolution

Jean-Marie Huriot & translated by Oliver Waine - 15 May 2013

Jean-Marie Huriot shows how the latest work by geographer David Harvey to be translated into French sheds new light...

Reviews

Beirut: the new front lines of urban research

Éric Verdeil & translated by Oliver Waine - 6 May 2013

In Beirut, the extremely rapid transformations of both urban spaces and urban policy raise a number of questions and...

From the Field

Mongolian (Urban) Homes

Lucile Chombart de Lauwe & Justine Pribetich & translated by Oliver Waine - 29 April 2013

The rapid urbanisation that Mongolia has undergone in recent years has changed the way its population lives. These...

Debates

Identity checks and the law

Nathalie Ferré & translated by Oliver Waine - 24 April 2013

In France, the issue of identity checks is at the heart of the thorny debate on how to ensure better relations...

From the Field

Regulating public spaces: the ambiguous role played by new professions

Jacques de Maillard & translated by Oliver Waine - 17 April 2013

Despite a hiatus in the debate on community policing in France, the “new professions” involved in regulating public...

Debates

When agriculture meets the city…

André Torre & Lise Bourdeau-Lepage & translated by Oliver Waine - 10 April 2013

In this article, André Torre and Lise Bourdeau-Lepage consider the role of nature in the city through the prism of...

Reviews

Urban Ethnography: A Handbook

Daniel Cefaï & translated by Oliver Waine - 3 April 2013

Since the 1980s, the field of ethnography has enjoyed a return to favour in the social sciences. Richard E. Ocejo’s...

Essays

Teenage mobility: a socialised and socialising practice

Julian Devaux & Nicolas Oppenchaim & translated by Oliver Waine - 27 March 2013

The comings and goings of teenagers, while a frequent source of tension in the parent–child relationship, are a...

Reviews

Free public transport: from social experiment to political alternative?

Maxime Huré & translated by Oliver Waine - 20 March 2013

In a work combining storytelling and reflection, a local councillor and a philosopher analyse the policy of free...

Reviews

Algerians and the police: colonial continuities and the weight of war

Françoise de Barros & translated by Oliver Waine - 13 March 2013

How can the treatment suffered by Algerians at the hands of the Paris police in the mid‑20th century be explained?...

Reviews

The politics of municipal mergers (and demergers) in Montreal

Richard Harris - 6 March 2013

In the late 1990s, the province of Quebec reacted to metropolitan growth in Montreal by merging the city with 27 of...

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