Metropolitics

Rendering a Redeveloped France

Alex Schafran & Giorgia Aiello & Theresa Enright & Yohann Le Moigne — 2017-06-07T06:00:00Z

As urban redevelopment projects remake the Greater Paris region, it is impossible to separate an avalanche of new investment from long histories of both multiculturalism and race-based stigmatization. But these are histories that the economic and political authors of the new Paris appear to want to erase. This essay's four authors deconstruct the renderings on billboards created to represent newly renovated banlieues, reflecting on why France's imagined future is unrepresentative of the nation's

- From the Field / France, Île-de-France, Grand Paris, Paris, suburbs, Bordeaux, Greater Paris, banlieue rouge, race, computer-aided images, multiculturalism, race and space, metropolitan restructuring, banlieue

Streetcars Named Desire

Luc Gwiazdzinski & translated by Oliver Waine — 2016-03-15T06:00:00Z

Luc Gwiazdzinski provides an original and critical analysis of the changes affecting today's cities and contemporary urban production by focusing on the trams, streetcars and light-rail systems that increasingly form part of the urban landscape. He shows in particular how these vehicles, as vectors for urban regeneration, are used as tools for the “staging” of the city.
Humanity has always cultivated the art of storytelling – an art that is at the heart of social ties everywhere (Salmon

- Debates / public transportation, urban planning, governance, storytelling, transport, Strasbourg, urban regeneration, Bordeaux, Montpellier, mass transit, urban project, tramway, tram, streetcar, light rail, fictional urban planning, Tours