Metropolitics

The grandeur and decadence of the suburbs

Violaine Girard & Jean Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-09-18T09:58:19Z

Periurban areas emerged in the 2000s as “new” spaces indicative of recent changes in French society – the weakening of the middle classes, the rise of the far right, etc. However, these spaces, which have been put under the microscope since the 1970s by geographers, sociologists and political scientists, cannot be reduced to the simplistic image promulgated by the media every election season.
Translated with the support of the Institut Français Dossier : Urban studies in France
“One fine

- Debates / periurban, vote, suburbs, elections, middle classes

Explaining the periurban right-wing vote: “social frustrations” of low-income households or the reshaping of the working classes?

Violaine Girard & translated by Oliver Waine — 2012-06-13T11:36:19Z

There is a growing interest in voting patterns in periurban areas, which tend to lean to the right or even far right. However, the interpretation of these patterns is often unsatisfactory: Violaine Girard shows that they reflect not a “downgrading” or “relegation”, but rather the profound transformations that have, for several decades, affected the stable fractions of the working classes.
Although periurban areas have for a long time been almost absent from research and media coverage, they

- Essays / homeownership, working-class neighborhoods, periurban, housing estates, work, vote, suburbs, elections, electoral geography, Front national, far right wing

What future for periurban communities: clubbisation or differentiated social dynamics?

Violaine Girard & translated by Oliver Waine — 2011-11-16T09:12:22Z

In La ville émiettée, Éric Charmes describes the phenomenon of “clubbisation” in towns and villages in the outer suburbs, where there is a growing tendency to operate exclusivist policies, with the aim of effecting a social selection of inhabitants. Although Charmes's work raises many issues, it overlooks the diverse range of social and political dynamics that can be found in periurban areas.
The urbanisation of rural areas on the outskirts of cities – an ongoing process in France since the

- Reviews / governance, clubbisation, gated communities, periurban, local authorities, local councillors