Gentrification, a frontier reshaping social division of urban space in the inner Paris

Gentrification, a frontier reshaping social division of urban space in the inner Paris

[SHS:GEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography

gentrification

Paris

social division of urban space

Gentrification, this specific form of middle-class penetration that affects older and working-class areas and that is accompanied by the restoration of housing, is a long-term movement in continental European cities that leans on the traditionally central positioning of the middle classes. Nevertheless, the movement has accelerated recently due to the convergence of a network of causes, including the changes to the global economic system and their expression in the world's largest cities, and the implications for the property market in those same cities. <br />Starting with the example of Paris, we will show how gentrification resembles a pioneering wave very similar to battle or invasion plans with its advance posts, skirting strategies and front lines. This pioneering front is nevertheless not a clear demarcation line, but a frontier zone where the gentrifiers live alongside the working classes, who are more and more often immigrants as gentrification progresses. In these spaces where such different groups live together, the ongoing process results in a change of scale in segregation between the different streets, flats and in other domains such as education or leisure activities. <br />What is the role of public policies in urban planning and housing in a process of this kind? Gentrification is often ignored or poorly understood by the public authorities, who are happy with the social desegregation that results in working-class areas. Furthermore, policies for the restoration of housing and the regeneration of public spaces - even in consultation with the residents, who are primarily the gentrifiers - work in favour of their acquisition of the area at the expense of the working classes. But there is little room for manœuvre for politicians who genuinely want to put a stop to this process.

Clerval, Anne

50th IFHP World Congress - Final report

Urban life, boundaries and transformations, 50th IFHP World Congress

2006

ENG

conference proceeding

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00152809

http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/15/28/09/PDF/Clerval-Gentrification_Paris.pdf

Genève

Switzerland