Metropolitics

Geolocation Among Teenage Peers: Between Play, Control, and Gendered Vulnerability

Yann Bruna & translated by Oliver Waine — 2025-03-28T06:00:00Z

Geolocation practices among teenagers are ambivalent, combining aspects of both play and surveillance. Yann Bruna examines Snap Map use, which exposes girls in particular to new forms of vulnerability online and in urban spaces.
Whether used in the workplace, within families or in romantic relationships, geolocation tracking has become an increasingly popular way of monitoring the activities of others over the last 10 years, propelled in particular by the widespread use of smartphones—the

- From the Field / teenagers, geolocation, youth, communication technology, surveillance, technology

Policing Social Housing in Paris: The Role of GPIS

Virginie Malochet & translated by Oliver Waine — 2021-05-28T05:00:00Z

Social landlords in France recently obtained the right to organize surveillance and security operations themselves within their properties. Virginie Malochet studies the case of GPIS, a social-housing security force founded in 2004 in Paris, and explores the rationale and nature of this kind of policing, which reflects both the rise of security concerns and the increased involvement of social-housing organizations in the process of ensuring urban security.
In social-housing neighborhoods in

- From the Field / policing, surveillance, social housing, Paris, public housing, profession, housing projects, night, security, public order, France

Landlord Tech in Covid‑19 Times

Erin McElroy & Wonyoung So — 2021-03-30T05:00:00Z

Covid‑19 has expanded trends in surveillance technology deployed by landlords and property managers—resulting in racialized and gendered harms—and targeted people who are already surveilled by the carceral state.
---- Series: Contemporary Housing Struggles: Crises, Activism, and Critical Research Covid‑19 has exacerbated existing forms of housing injustice, as the corollary economic recession, stay-at-home orders, and increased domestic work such as childcare have made it impossible for

- From the Field / technology, landlords, evictions, surveillance, Covid-19, coronavirus, pandemic, tenants

Urban renewal and the “defensible space” model: the growing impact of security issues on the way our cities develop

Camille Gosselin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2016-02-12T06:00:00Z

In transforming the urban planning and architecture of social-housing estates, urban-renewal policies are not just about changing the image or populations of these neighbourhoods. They also seek to control public spaces more effectively. Guided by the principles of “situational prevention”, the implementation of such policies reflects the growing influence of security-related issues in urban development.
The French urban renewal policy initiated in 2004 presented a threefold objective: to

- Essays / France, public space, housing projects, urban renewal, social housing, urban development, housing estates, public policy, security, surveillance, situational prevention, defensible space