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Urban Policy and Gentrification. A Critical Analysis Using the Case of Paris

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Book cover Emergent Phenomena in Housing Markets

Abstract

This paper contributes to the reappraisal of the issues approached in gentrification studies. It focuses on the role of public policies in the gentrification of the Paris inner city and, in addition to presenting technical aspects, it provides a critical analysis of this phenomenon, aiming to shed light on the political meaning of public action occurring there today. The paper gives an overview of the actors, factors and spatial dynamics involved in the gentrification process since the 1980s and then focuses in more detail on public action since 2001, when the left (Parti socialiste) took over the Paris municipality. While political goals still remain relatively ambiguous, the authors of the present paper set out to clarify the global consequences of public policies in housing, public spaces and culture. In spite of the city Council’s will to overhaul public policies, its action has been unsuccessful so far in stopping the gentrification process in Paris. It has indeed actually contributed to it by transforming public spaces and by the modes of cultural action implemented.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For instance the following can be quoted: the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie opened in 1986 on the site of the former La Villette abattoir, or the Opéra Bastille opened in 1989 on the edge of the Faubourg St Antoine which was in the process of marked gentrification.

  2. 2.

    Paris is divided into arrondissements that are numbered from the centre outwards in spiral form.

  3. 3.

    A new mode of calculation included extensive rehabilitation in the category of new constructions.

  4. 4.

    This refers to housing used as main residence and provided with neither toilets nor bath/shower.

  5. 5.

    What is referred to here is the definition of socio-demographic profiles for the Paris IRIS developed in a study on the Paris quarters (Saint-Julien 2008). Eight socio-demographic profiles were defined by considering the distribution of inhabitants over 15 on the basis of age, educational level, social category of households reference person, and employment status. This typology was then set against the map of the “green quarters” (Fleury 2007).

  6. 6.

    The “Comité métallos” groups local associations and inhabitants who mobilised between 1997 and 2001 to save the site, which was at the time up for part sale by the Union, from property speculation. Today this collective denounces the fact that it has been cut off from the new Maison des Métallos which has become a cultural establishment run by the municipality, and also the fact that it is rented out to private enterprises 30 days a year [see www.lesmetallos.org].

  7. 7.

    This is reported in a study for APUR, the urban development agency of the city of Paris, entitled Les classes moyennes et le logement à Paris (Nov 2006), in which the middle classes are defined partly arbitrarily so as to correspond to 60% of the Paris population.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, Paris, France

    Anne Clerval (Associate professor of geography)

  2. CNRS-UMR Géographie-cités, Paris, France

    Antoine Fleury (Researcher in geography)

Authors
  1. Anne Clerval
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  2. Antoine Fleury
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Correspondence to Anne Clerval .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Dpt. Architecture and Planning, Politecnico di Milano, Bonardi 3, Milano, 20133, Italy

    Lidia Diappi

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Clerval, A., Fleury, A. (2013). Urban Policy and Gentrification. A Critical Analysis Using the Case of Paris. In: Diappi, L. (eds) Emergent Phenomena in Housing Markets. Physica, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2864-1_7

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