Metropolitics

Immigration in the French Countryside

Julie Fromentin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2024-02-27T06:00:00Z

What place do immigrants occupy in the French countryside? By examining detailed data from the last five decades, Julie Fromentin shows that while there has been moderate growth in their numbers over this period, there has above all been considerable diversification in terms of their countries of origin and the places in which they settle.
Since the 2000s, French society has been marked by growing social and territorial inequalities (Lambert and Cayouette-Remblière 2021; Fleury et al. 2012).

- From the Field / settlement, inequalities, countryside, immigration, segregation, rural

The Treatment of “North Africans” in 1960s Urban Renewal in France

Janoé Vulbeau & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-02-01T06:00:00Z

While France's 1960s urban renewal has been studied in terms of its effects on the working classes, its racial dimension has rarely been highlighted. Janoé Vulbeau examines two neighborhoods in the northern cities of Lille and Roubaix, considered in light of Henri Coing's pioneering Paris study, and shows how the development of what amounts to a settlement policy was partly based on the grouping together of, and discrimination against, “North Africans.”
The urban-renewal policies implemented

- Essays / France, immigration, urban renewal, Algerian War, discrimination, Roubaix, Lille, settlement, population, Hauts-de-France, Northern France, decolonization, Nord–Pas-de-Calais

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