Metropolitics

The electoral effects of social divisions in French cities

Jean Rivière & translated by Oliver Waine — 2014-07-02T04:50:00Z

According to many commentators, France's major cities are bastions of support for the parliamentary left when it comes to election time. However, Jean Rivière's analysis of the situation – far from confirming these kinds of simplifications that contrast city-dwelling “bobos” on the one hand with “suburbanites” on the other – invites us to reconsider the electoral geography of French cities by examining them at polling-district level, revealing their socially composite nature.
---- Series:

- From the Field / inequalities, vote, elections, mapping, cartography, neighborhood effects, metropolitan areas, urban geography

The importance of the neighborhood in Chicago and elsewhere

Eliza Benites-Gambirazio — 2014-03-19T05:55:00Z

The latest work by Robert Sampson, released to positive reviews, shows the sustainable effects of internal social dynamics within neighborhoods in terms of the vulnerability of their residents and the reproduction of these dynamics over time. It calls for action to be taken as a matter of priority to change the way social life is organized in underprivileged neighborhoods.
Published in 2012, Robert Sampson's book immediately became a must-read of American sociology for those who are

- Reviews / ghetto, segregation, Chicago, inequalities, United States, neighborhood, Chicago School, neighborhood effects

“Ghetto,” “Banishment,” “Neighborhood Effects.” A Critique of the “Ghetto” Image of French Housing Projects

Pierre Gilbert & translated by Eric Rosencrantz — 2011-03-23T06:30:00Z

Are residents of French housing projects really “banished” to their neighborhoods and kept in “confinement” there? Does living there have nothing but adverse effects on their integration into society? Pierre Gilbert argues that empirical studies to date fall far short of bearing out this portrayal of French housing projects as “ghettos”. And yet this very “ghetto” image has served as the basis for the overhaul of urban policy over the past decade and the ensuing urban renewal program in France.

- Essays / ghetto, segregation, housing projects, working-class neighborhoods, urban policy, urban renewal, residential mobility, social diversity, social housing, housing estates, neighborhood effects