Metropolitics

Well-being in the Paris region: widening regional disparities despite overall improvement

Lise Bourdeau-Lepage & Élisabeth Tovar & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-10-12T09:07:22Z

Has the socio-spatial divide widened over the past 10 years in the Paris region? Using an original method inspired by the work of Amartya Sen to measure the distribution of well-being in the Paris region between 1999 and 2006, Lise Bourdeau-Lepage and Élisabeth Tovar come to a rather pessimistic conclusion: the general rise in well-being actually masks widening regional disparities and setbacks in the northern suburbs of Paris, which are increasingly disadvantaged.
In recent years, the Paris

- Essays / segregation, Paris region, inequalities, well-being, social justice, Greater Paris

Post-2006 reconstruction in Lebanon: a laboratory for new urban planning practices

Éric Verdeil & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-10-05T05:00:00Z

Modes of urban planning often develop at an accelerated pace during periods of reconstruction. Lebanon in the aftermath of the 2006 war is a case in point. This book is a collection of urban planners' and academics' assessments of their own efforts on the ground in Lebanon, where the government's abdication has allowed Hezbollah to become heavily entrenched locally.
The past few years have provided a great many examples of urban reconstruction after natural disasters and man-made conflicts.

- Reviews / democracy, reconstruction, Lebanon, Beirut

The Fantastical Accounts of Grand Paris

Frédéric Léonhardt & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-09-28T05:00:00Z

After four years of ongoing debate, the French government's Grand Paris scheme has spawned a large-scale mass transit project called the Grand Paris Express. In response to Nicolas Buchoud's article on the subject, Frédéric Léonhardt sounds the financial alarm: the Grand Paris Express, as he sees it, is headed straight to the wall.
Four years after it was announced with great pomp and circumstance, the Grand Paris project remains precisely that: a much-hyped announcement, a grand pipe dream.

- Debates / Île-de-France, Grand Paris, public transportation, local finance, Greater Paris, mass transit

Integrating the train into the city: some thoughts from Spain

Luis Santos y Ganges & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-09-21T05:00:00Z

Are inner-city railways condemned to form boundaries or barriers within the city? Based on a critique of the situation in Spain, the author suggests a few ways of integrating the railway into the city. His proposals shed some revealing light on the rationale behind efforts to redevelop derelict railway land in France, too, such as the Jardins d'Éole rehabilitation project in Paris.
The railway system is a fully-fledged urban element unto itself, a vast, complex space that forms an integral

- Debates / public transportation, urban planning, Spain, local finance, mass transit

Making sustainability public: the bayou observation deck in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans

Stéphane Tonnelat & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-06-20T05:30:00Z

How can the residents of a flooded neighborhood in New Orleans, torn between reconstruction imperatives and environmental exigencies, prove its viability? Stéphane Tonnelat looks at a solution people from the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans came up with: a platform providing access to the bayou as well as a forum for debate about the future of the neighborhood. This public space seems to have bolstered the sustainability of a neighborhood in a risky location.
---- Series: New Orleans: The

- From the Field / catastrophe, public space, sustainable development, New Orleans, disaster, environment, collective action, hurricane

The (mis)measurement of periurbanization

Anne Lambert & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-05-11T05:10:00Z

(Peri)urban sprawl is unanimously decried as a cause for economic, environmental and social concern. And yet defining the phenomenon itself is a complicated undertaking that significantly affects the measurement thereof.
The “periurban” realm, whose rapid expansion since the 1960s has caused widespread concern, is difficult to grasp owing to its ambiguous nature, somewhere between urban and rural. Incidentally, the term “periurbanization” has only latterly gained currency in the French

- Debates / urban sprawl, statistics, periurban, rural

The Wealth of Local Currencies

Sophie Donzel & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-04-27T05:30:00Z

Following up on Smaïn Laacher's essay on Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), Sophie Donzel, deputy mayor of Nanterre, extols the value of local currencies and calls for a new monetary ecology.
Are you rich if you've got twice as many jobs as jobholders living in your district? If you've got ten million square feet of office space, including the headquarters of national and multinational corporations? If the companies located in your district turn over all told €29 billion? Well, no!

- Debates / Nanterre, LETS, local currencies

The Handicaps of Handicapped Housing

Catherine Carpentier & Emmanuelle Colboc & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-04-13T06:25:00Z

Since February 2005, all new and renovated housing in France has to meet standards of accessibility for the disabled. In the authors' opinion, not only do these regulations reduce usable floor space, above all they constitute an indiscriminate – and inappropriate – approach that detracts from the quality of the housing and impoverishes the architecture.
Everyone agrees nowadays that there is a housing shortage in France, particularly for the most disadvantaged among us. Even though new

- Debates / architecture, construction, housing, disabilities

The Ladies Kingdom and Its Many Uses. A shopping mall in Riyadh for women only

Saba A. Le Renard & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-03-30T05:30:00Z

The frenetic development of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia is unveiling new and unexpected urban realms, including a shopping mall for women only: the following is a look at a public space liberated from the constraints of social control – and consecrated to consumption.
Inside the shopping mall of the Kingdom Centre (Al Mamlaka), a modern tower built in 2001 and overlooking the new “urban glamor zone” (Saskia Sassen 1996) of downtown Riyadh, there is a whole floor reserved for women called the

- From the Field / consumption, public space, gender, Saudi Arabia, retail, retail areas, shopping mall

“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