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

Haussmann: from modernity to revolution

Jean-Marie Huriot & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-05-15T08:32:12Z

Jean-Marie Huriot shows how the latest work by geographer David Harvey to be translated into French sheds new light on the major changes that affected Paris from 1848 to 1871. Through a process of creative destruction, “Haussmannisation” brought with it modernity, but also set the stage for the rise of the Paris Commune.
In the tumultuous period of Paris's history that extends from the barricades of 1848 to the bloody repression of the Commune in 1871, profound transformations occurred that

- Reviews / capitalism, urban history, social movement, Paris, Haussmann, Marxism

Metropolitics

The Wrecker's Pick. The Rationales and Hidden Agendas of Urban Renewal in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Haussmann: from modernity to revolution