Impoverishment and Social Fragmentation in Housing Estates of the Paris Region, France.

Abstract

The chapter provides a historical overview of the construction and renewal programmes of large housing estates in Paris and its surrounding suburbs. The authors examine neighbourhood level data on two large housing estates to provide insight into the processes of poverty and ethnic concentration within these sites. They also examine the impact of urban renewal programmes on demographic and physical change. They argue that while the urban form of the large housing estate is gradually disappearing from the housing landscape, poverty and ethnic concentration have not disappeared, and micro-fragmentation between different social levels has become more pronounced. By including individual residential trajectories and mobilities in the analysis - and going beyond the traditional gentrification/displacement nexus - the authors demonstrate that current renewal policies are at risk of creating new peripheries of exclusion and segregation at a regional level. At the same time, examination of the two case studies allows for a more nuanced perspective, which suggests that housing estates continue to play an important role in providing affordable housing and residential opportunities for local residents.