Abstract
This chapter presents a “generative analysis” of ways of residing that, through close cooperation between sociologists and urban planners, has been used to design urban renewal projects of public housing estates through a collaborative process involving the decision makers and the residents. This approach is aimed at restructuring and regenerating housing estates, and also improving urban management so as to facilitate new social practices, reduce social conflicts and develop “urban identity potential”. Through this process, the residents are invited to express their opinions and expectations regarding the improvement of the design of their estate. Urban planners and sociologists are responsible for finding the best design solutions which can fulfil these expectations, knowing that they also have to be suitable for the decision makers. Then residents are invited to criticize the diverse scenarios which are proposed to them in order to make adaptations and define the final project.
We have used and monitored this kind of approach in several urban renewal projects in public housing estates for deprived people in many large French city suburbs, such as Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, and Reims. This chapter discusses the design process that was carried out as an urban renewal scheme in a Belleville Hill estate in a northern district of Paris. The approach, in which urban areas restructuring is based upon an analysis of ways of residing, shows that sociological research is not necessarily restricted to an analysis of urban dynamics or an assessment of the social impact of urban projects. It can also be a guide to the very design of these projects. For us, this kind of approach and professional practice is truly a clinical sociology approach, as the design of urban space and the way public authorities maintain it may lead to degradation processes, which in their turn, lead to the development of social conflicts and delinquency. We assume that clinical sociology should mainly aim at changing social processes in which people are embedded.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
We identify groups of inhabitants sharing similar ways of residing in each district. These ways of residing are characterised by different kinds of attitudes of inhabitants towards their homes; the neighbourhood and its surroundings; and also their neighbours. Attitudes can vary from deep attachment to various forms of withdrawal or rejection of the neighbourhood, neighbours or family members.
- 2.
“Toponomy” is a word that we developed based on the Greek terms “topos”, which means space, and “nomos” which means rule.
- 3.
We began to understand this process in 1985 when we visited very poor neighbourhoods in the United States (in New York City, Chicago and Baltimore). We discovered neighbourhoods lacking any public institution such as police or education centres and without any kind of maintenance, with sprawling mounds of trash everywhere. As institutions didn’t exercise control, local mafias took their place and implemented their own social control system, killing people who tried to resist.
References
Allen, B. (2003). Les Tarterêts, un quartier d’accueil? (The Tarterêts, a district for immigrants?). Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, 94. Bloch (Ed.), Experimentum Mundi. Paris: Payot, 1981.
Bloch, E. (1981). Experimentum Mundi. Paris: Payot. (Original Publication 1975, Berlin: Suhrkamp).
Bonetti, M. (1994). Habiter, le bricolage imaginaire de l’espace, (Living, the imaginary Do-It-Yourself in space). Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
Bonetti, M. (2004). Les risques de dérive du renouvellement urbain. (Risks of drift in urban renewal). Les Annales de la Recherche Urbaine, 97, 35–42.
Bonetti, M. (2007). Chronique de la dégradation annoncée des opérations de rénovation urbaine liée au déficit de gestion urbaine (Chronicle of the degredation of urban renewal linked to the lack of urban maintenance). Unpublished manuscript. http://lsug.cstb.fr. Accessed 15 April 2007.
Bourdieu, P. (1972). Esquisse d’une théorie de la pratique (Outline of a practical theory). Genève: Droz.
Braudel, F. (1970). L’identité de la France (The Identity of France). Paris: Arthaud.
Castoriadis, C. (1975). L’institution imaginaire de la société, (The imaginary institution of society). Paris: Seuil.
Giddens, A. (1987). La constitution de la société (The constitution of society). Paris: PUF.
Marx, K. Engels, F. (1974). L’idéologie allemande: première Partie, Feuerbach (classiques du Marxisme) (The German ideology: Part one, Feuerbach (Classics of Marxism). (R. Cartelle G. Badia, Trans.) Paris: Éditions sociales. (Original work published 1932).
Touraine, A. (1973). La production de la société (Production of society). Paris: Seuil.
Wilson, W.J. (1993). The Ghetto underclass. Newbury Park: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bonetti, M., Laforgue, JD. (2014). Involving Residents in the Design of Urban Renewal Projects Based upon a Generative Analysis of Social Processes. In: Fritz, J., Rhéaume, J. (eds) Community Intervention. Clinical Sociology: Research and Practice. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0998-8_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0998-8_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-0997-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-0998-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)