Metropolitics

A Masterpiece in Peril: The Garden Suburb of La Butte-Rouge

Renaud Epstein & translated by Oliver Waine — 2026-02-24T06:00:00Z

La Butte-Rouge, built in the mid-20th century in Paris's southern suburbs, is the archetypal example of a French cité-jardin. In a recent work retracing its history, Élise Guillerm highlights the urban and architectural qualities of this eco-neighborhood before its time, whose very existence is now threatened by an urban renewal project.
Analysis of urban policies, and particularly urban renewal policies, dispels the idea that historical knowledge can prevent the repetition of past mistakes.

- Reviews / urban planning, cité-jardin, HLM, urban heritage, heritage, Châtenay-Malabry, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, social housing, sustainable development, garden city, garden suburb, France, Paris region, Paris, history, urban history, environment, urban renewal, landscape

The Emergence of Ecological Thinking in the City

Charles-François Mathis & translated by Oliver Waine — 2022-09-27T05:00:00Z

What place does ecological thinking have in the field of urban planning? In describing the use of vegetation in cities since the 19th century, Charles-François Mathis examines the historical evolution of planning choices and the foundations of a new “ecological urbanism.”
Wherever I may go today, if the opportunity arises, if I have an hour to spare in an unknown city, a complacent drift takes me along the streets, towards these placid chlorophyllous enclaves encircled nowadays by the

- Essays / landscape, nature, gardens, ecology, parks, urban development, urban planning, environment, history

How Can Talking Save Trees?

Léo Magnin & translated by Oliver Waine — 2019-07-12T05:00:00Z

In rural France, tree exchange systems seek to avoiding the felling that typically accompanies exchanges of parcels between farmers resulting from land-consolidation procedures. Leo Magnin's analysis of how this system operates reveals a means of managing conflicts between environmental protection on the one hand and individual property rights on the other.
On Tuesday, February 6, 2018, the village of La Siouve1 in the Auvergne region of central France wakes to negative temperatures. It' is 9

- From the Field / land consolidation, hedgerows, trees, conflict, farming, agriculture, landscape, environment, environmental protection, ecology, rural, France

Soundscape Revisited

Élise Geisler & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-01-08T05:50:00Z

Research on the subject of the landscape reminds us that it does not just engage us visually, but that all our senses are involved. In particular, Élise Geisler here revisits the concept of the “soundscape”, based on the work of Raymond Murray Schafer, who invented the term in the 1970s.
In this paper, we shall seek to reconsider the notion of the “soundscape”, a neologism coined in the 1970s by Raymond Murray Schafer, a Canadian composer and educator (Schafer 1979). His pioneering work

- Essays / landscape, soundscape, acoustic environment, urban ambiences

The poetry of the urban landscape

Émeline Bailly & translated by Oliver Waine — 2013-10-09T04:50:00Z

The ideal of “nature in the city” is a key characteristic of many urban projects. Émeline Bailly shows that the creation of landscaped spaces in urban areas can transform not just the city's image but also people's relationship with their environment, and in particular their mental perception of places.
---- Series: Nature in the CityLandscaping: a new form of urban creation?
The current enthusiasm for “landscapes” is evident in urban projects under way in both France and the United States

- Debates / urban planning, sustainable development, nature, image, landscape