Metropolitics

France's Housing Projects Recounted Through Postcards

Florine Ballif & translated by Oliver Waine — 2026-04-21T05:00:00Z

The selection of postcards presented by Renaud Epstein in his book On est bien arrivés (“We've arrived safely”) invites us to look at France's large postwar social housing projects and their inhabitants from a different, more sensitive perspective, far removed from the usual stereotypes.
This original book sheds light on a forgotten—even ignored—object: postcards showcasing France's postwar social housing projects, or “grands ensembles”. In this book, political scientist Renaud Epstein

- Reviews / architecture, banlieue, grands ensembles, heritage, urban heritage, public housing, suburbs, social housing, urban planning, urbanism, photography, memory

The Black Middle Class, or the Harsh Reality of the American Dream

Sylvie Tissot & translated by Oliver Waine — 2023-01-24T06:00:00Z

The suburbs of the United States, once the epicenter of racial segregation, are now home to more African Americans than ever. Drawing on her investigation of the New York suburbs, Orly Clergé demonstrates the considerable heterogeneity and fragility of the Black middle classes in a society structured by racism.
One particularly evocative type of place sums up all the stereotypes of African Americans: Black ghettos. Orly Clergé's book The New Noir seeks to challenge the way Black people in the

- Reviews / United States, suburbs, middle classes, history, racism

The Second Coming of the Accessory Dwelling Unit

Joseph Weil Huennekens — 2021-10-26T05:00:00Z

Joseph Weil Huennekens discusses the history of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in the context of housing in the suburbs, and argues that fair housing requires more than ADU legalization.
Planners and advocates have long promoted accessory dwelling units (ADUs) as a solution to the affordable housing crisis. According to proponents, ADUs are a low-impact way to unleash new production—a corrective to years of racist housing policy that have kept multifamily options out of the suburbs (Kazis

- Debates / urban planning, land-use planning, housing, housing policy, suburbs, accessory dwelling units, Long Island, New York

In Search of Grand Paris: Pierre Mansat on the Eve of the June 2020 Municipal Elections

Magda Maaoui & Pierre Mansat — 2020-06-26T05:00:00Z

Magda Maaoui interviews Pierre Mansat, former deputy mayor of Paris and a founding father of “le Grand Paris” (the metropolitan authority for Greater Paris), about Grand Paris and the limits of political action at the municipal level in light of the upcoming municipal elections.
Less than a week before 12 million Parisians vote in the second round of elections for their mayors and their municipal councils, which has now been delayed from March 22 to June 28 owing to the coronavirus lockdown,

- Interviews / Grand Paris, Grand Paris Express, Greater Paris, Paris region, Paris, Île-de-France, France, banlieue, suburbs, metropolitan areas, metropolitan restructuring, metropolis, territorial equality, territorial reform, governance, local governance, metropolization, coronavirus, Covid-19, public transportation, transport, mass transit, intercommunality

Covid-19, War, and Working-Class Neighborhoods

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Oliver Waine — 2020-06-05T05:00:00Z

The residents of France's working-class neighborhoods, accused of exacerbating the coronavirus pandemic through their supposed “incivility,” have been the target of speeches that have sought to reactivate the fantasy of the urban ghetto. In reality, however, multiple sources of inequality—housing, health, transportation—have in fact made lockdown especially difficult in housing projects and exposed their residents to a greater risk of infection.
The epidemic that is sweeping the planet is an

- Debates / inequalities, Covid-19, coronavirus, lockdown, housing, social housing, housing estates, housing projects, banlieue, suburbs, working classes, working-class neighborhoods, overoccupancy, health, transport, public transportation, mass transit, France, pandemic

How the Youth of the Banlieues See the Gilets Jaunes

2020-04-24T05:00:00Z

Do the “Yellow Vests” and the youth of France's banlieues share a common vision of the inequalities and discrimination that divide contemporary societies? A roundtable discussion organized as part of research on participation in working-class neighborhoods sheds light on the ambivalent views that certain young people in these areas have regarding the Gilets Jaunes movement.
Since the beginning of the Gilets Jaunes (“Yellow Vests”) movement, in October 2018, a number of commentators have noted

- From the Field / banlieue, suburbs, gilets jaunes, youth, collective action, mobilization, working-class neighborhoods, working classes, demonstrations, protest, discrimination, Paris region, Île-de-France, France, Paris

The New Suburban Secession: A Postfascist Turn in Atlanta's Cityhood Movement

Coleman Allums & Scott Markley — 2020-03-10T06:00:00Z

In this essay, Coleman Allums and Scott Markley analyze a suburban secessionist movement in Atlanta, Georgia. They argue that the case of Eagle's Landing exemplifies a neoliberal reaction to racial change and represents a critical departure from Atlanta's contemporary suburban secession movements.
In a recent article for the online publication CityLab, Brentin Mock (2018b) gives a critical account of the movement for Eagle's Landing, a proposed city in the suburbs south of Atlanta which he

- Essays / suburbs, secession, white flight, race, race and space, Atlanta, Georgia, United States, cityhood

Aubervilliers: Portrait of a Working-Class Suburb

Anaïs Albert & translated by Oliver Waine — 2020-02-21T06:00:00Z

The republication of an early-20th‑century realist novel set in the northern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers brings the industrial towns of the pre-war era back to life—their smells, their health risks, but above all the lives of their inhabitants—offering today's readers a veritable ethnographic immersion into this working-class town.
Although today largely forgotten, except by historians of the working classes, Léon Bonneff was a major figure of social investigation in the early 20th century.

- Reviews / Aubervilliers, Paris, Greater Paris, France, Île-de-France, Paris region, industry, suburbs, banlieue, pollution, health, work, working classes, history, urban history, literature, environment, workers, blue-collar workers, manual workers

Masculine Sports and “Respectable” Men in Working-Class Neighborhoods

Carine Guérandel & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-03-12T06:00:00Z

In a work rich in ethnographic material, Akim Oualhaci questions how socialization through sports contributes to the reconfiguration of masculinities in working-class neighborhoods in France and the United States.
Studies on the social construction of masculinities—a quite recent but very productive field of research—often focuses on the world of sports, considered an effective space for gender-based socialization. Akim Oualhaci's book is a continuation of this work and specifically analyzes

- Debates / sport, working classes, working-class identity, working-class neighborhoods, social class, ethnography, youth, masculinity, gender, socialization, suburbs, banlieue, ghetto, Paris region, New York, France, United States

Political Conservatism and the Working Classes in France

David Gouard & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-01-25T06:00:00Z

In her latest book, Le Vote FN au village (“The National Front Vote in the Village”), sociologist Violaine Girard presents a rigorous study of working-class trajectories “in search of respectability.” Resisting any temptation to offer an overarching, oversimplistic vision of the far-right vote, this work instead skillfully makes use of a municipal monograph to examine a village's political ecosystem in detail.
Since the late 2000s, studies of electoral behavior in France have sought to

- Reviews / periurban, local councillors, village, suburbs, elections, Front national, mayors, far right wing