Metropolitics

Filming Ethnic Diversity in New York

Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2016-10-21T08:23:11Z

Frederick Wiseman's fortieth documentary film, In Jackson Heights (2015), returns to an urban theme explored in previous films such as Central Park (1989) and Public Housing (1997). This time he chose an entire New York City neighborhood characterized by great racial and ethnic diversity.
Frederick Wiseman's latest documentary, In Jackson Heights, plunges us into a three-hour uninterrupted exploration of the institutions, the streets, and the concerns of the inhabitants of a multiethnic

- Reviews / immigration, gentrification, ethnicity, New York, neighborhood, community, Queens, institution, street, film, documentary, diversity, Featured

The Wrecker's Pick. The Rationales and Hidden Agendas of Urban Renewal in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Alain Faure & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2016-06-07T05:00:00Z

Alain Faure, a scholar of the social history of cities, puts urban renewal into perspective. He questions the concerns with security, the obsession with hygiene, the legal rationales, and the speculative plans of this era. His analysis sheds light on the history of the planning and construction of settlements for “rich and financially solvent clients—the only ones, in fact, who ever mattered for real-estate capitalism.” He reminds us that urban renewal is a history of power relations between

- Essays / France, gentrification, housing, urban renewal, safety, Paris, land, Haussmann, hygienism, settlement, population, public works

How Children Cope When Home is a Hotel

Erwan Le Méner & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2016-02-05T06:00:00Z

Emergency housing in social hotels is affecting a growing number of families in the Paris region. How does this experience impact the lives of children? What are the consequences on children's relationship to space, on how they grow up, and on how they learn, make friends and play? Erwan Le Méner shows how school plays a central role in stabilizing an otherwise precarious situation.
---- Series: Children in the City Today, one in five people experiencing homelessness in the Paris region are

- From the Field / France, Paris region, housing, children, public policy, sociabilities, vulnerability, homelessness, precarity, vulnerable housing, emergency accommodation, social emergency, social hotel, school

Social Diversity in Gentrified Neighborhoods: Child's Play?

Jean-Yves Authier & Sonia Lehman-Frisch & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2015-12-04T05:55:00Z

How do children develop relationships? Do they meet children from socio-economic backgrounds other than their own? What are the effects of (much sought-after) social diversity among adults on the younger generation? This study of children's social relations in a gentrified neighborhood in Paris sheds light on these questions.
---- Series: Children in the City Since the 1980s, many large European and North American cities have been affected by gentrification: upper-middle-class households

- From the Field / gentrification, social diversity, Paris, children, neighborhood, sociabilities, parenting practices

Suburbanization as a Project

Martin Vanier & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2011-04-06T06:42:00Z

Experts and policies fail to recognize the contradictions that urban sprawl creates and rarely go beyond directives. Perhaps the right questions aren't being asked. Rather than calling to limit the growth of these territories, thought of as being “without qualities,” Martin Vanier pleads for a suburban project.
For the past forty years, society has become more and more suburbanized. For the past forty years, scientific observers have described and explained the problem of suburbanization.

- Debates / urbanization, urban sprawl, suburbanization, periurban, suburbs

Homosexual City, Homophobic Banlieue?

Éric Fassin & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2011-03-09T06:30:00Z

Is homophobia prevalent in social housing projects? Is sexual orientation the new divide between civilizations? Éric Fassin shows how condemning sexism in the banlieues not only reinforces the opposition between “us” and “them,” but also contributes to fueling it.
In 2009, two books on homosexuality in the banlieues were published. The subtitle of Homo-ghetto, written by Franck Chaumont, and published on October 1st, describes “gays and lesbians in the projects” as “the stowaways of the

- Debates / ghetto, banlieue, homophobia, racism, gender, homosexuality, race, gay, LGBTQ+

Why Build New Housing?

Jean-Claude Driant & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2011-01-28T10:17:44Z

Can building more houses solve the housing problem? Jean-Claude Driant shows that a simple quantitative approach does not fulfill the different housing policy goals set by the State. Rather than rejecting the analysis based on the “housing chain”, he suggests new ways to make it more reliable.
For many years, national and local housing policy has been going in two supposedly complementary directions: the growth of homeownership and an increase in building new housing. The second part of this

- Debates

“Roma Villages” or the Reinvention of Cités de Transit

Olivier Legros & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2011-01-03T09:04:12Z

In France, many Bulgarian and Romanian Roma migrants are being deported back to their home country. Certain selected families, however, are being re-housed in “integration villages,” that according to the author, are oddly reminiscent of the cités de transit built for immigrants in the 1960's. Is the State repeating the history of failing to integrate foreign workers?
The “Roma question” is being debated daily in the media, mostly initiated by top government officials, who are seeking

- Debates

The Virtues and Vices of the Growth of Homeownership

Jean-Claude Driant & translated by Christina Mitrakos — 2010-11-24T22:23:12Z

Why is it necessary to become a homeowner? Jean-Claude Driant examines the arguments for and against policies that support the growth of homeownership in France. He wonders whether the present government has abandoned the caution that up until now has guided national housing policy.
Since the 1970s, successive governments have continuously made the growth of homeownership a major issue in housing policy. Ever since Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's 1974 election campaign, the slogan “France: a

- Debates / homeownership, home-buying, social housing