Metropolitics

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Oliver Waine — 2020-06-05T05:00:00Z

The residents of France's working-class neighborhoods, accused of exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic through their supposed “incivility,” have been the target of speeches that have sought to reactivate the fantasy of the urban ghetto. In reality, however, multiple sources of inequality—housing, health, transportation—have in fact made lockdown especially difficult in housing projects and exposed their residents to a greater risk of infection.
The epidemic that is sweeping the planet is an

- Debates / inequalities, Covid-19, coronavirus, lockdown, housing, social housing, housing estates, housing projects, banlieue, suburbs, working classes, working-class neighborhoods, overoccupancy, health, transport, public transportation, mass transit, France, pandemic

How the Algerian War shaped French cities

Pierre Gilbert & Charlotte Vorms & translated by Oliver Waine — 2012-03-21T05:55:00Z

The Algerian War of Independence, which coincided with a turning point in France's urban history, had a significant influence on the future of French cities. Metropolitics explores the role of conflict in their development.
The second half of the 1950s was a crucial period of change in the history of French urban policy: it was at this time that urban renewal, slum clearance and the construction of large social housing estates began. And yet these policies were implemented while the country

- Series

“Ghetto,” “Banishment,” “Neighborhood Effects.” A Critique of the “Ghetto” Image of French Housing Projects

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-03-23T06:30:00Z

Are residents of French housing projects really “banished” to their neighborhoods and kept in “confinement” there? Does living there have nothing but adverse effects on their integration into society? Pierre Gilbert argues that empirical studies to date fall far short of bearing out this portrayal of French housing projects as “ghettos”. And yet this very “ghetto” image has served as the basis for the overhaul of urban policy over the past decade and the ensuing urban renewal program in France.

- Essays / ghetto, segregation, housing projects, working-class neighborhoods, urban policy, urban renewal, residential mobility, social diversity, social housing, housing estates, neighborhood effects