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0 2,5 5 10 Administrative City Border City Center Area Territory marked on tourist city maps Urbanized Area of the City

Paris and its Peripheries

Sophie Body-Gendrot

In the Paris metropolis today, the imbalance between the very dense, pow-erful intra muros of the French capital and the other two million residents spread out among its various surrounding areas is glaring. This problem is similar in the old historical Moscow, where its 7 million residents only occupied up to 15% of its territory. The explanation for the case of Par-is are both historical and political. Like Moscow’s inner city, Paris (twen-ty districts intra muros) covers only 100 km2. The Greater London Author-ity manages 1580 km2 with 8 million residents over 33 boroughs. New York City (five boroughs) has 8 million residents. To achieve equivalence, Greater Paris (1,300 localities), with its 11.3 million residents, should be spread over 12,000 km2.

The distinction between modern Paris (intra muros) and the first ring dates back to Baron Haussmann and the fortification walls built in the 19th century. Throughout that century, Paris absorbed a continuous supply of migrants from the provinces and from adjacent countries. The city was unfortunately unable to adapt to this massive influx. The living conditions for the poor were disastrous and kept deteriorating as more people arrived, especially after Haussman’s large renovation works in the 1860s which precipitated the revolt of the lower classes during the Paris Commune of 1871. The writer George Sand once re-marked how many more poor people were on the street forcing the pauper to beg at night, knife in hand. The conflict between the dom-inant classes and the 'dangerous' paupers (one-third of Paris’ popula-tion) grew throughout the nineteenth century. The River Seine marked a geographical and social divide between the poor concentrated in the centre and to the east, and the dominant households in the north and to the west of Paris. Paris’ main heritage from Haussmann was the creation of a real ban-lieue  — peripheral sites in the city where, from the Second Empire (1850–70) onwards, workers were sent in successive waves. These be-came places where poor citizens accustomed to urban life were 'ex-iled' and forced to re-organize in order to survive. Briefly, this demon-strates how the end of the 19th century was similar to experiences in Greater Paris today in areas of social tension. These were ‘hot spots’ where police were reluctant to enter for fear of violence or inciting further disorder. Any tendency to idealize the past disappeared. Only

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after WWII, during the “thirty glorious years”, a time of growth and almost full employment, social homogeneity and welfare redistribu-tion, was social unrest alleviated. But the rigidity of the spatial/social separation between Paris and its outskirts was not overcome. Partly explained perhaps by the puzzling administrative and political parti-tions of this region, and also partly explained by the role of the State and of Paris, as the capital of that state that is France.

The Politico-Administrative Puzzle

The cleavage between the Paris intra-muros and its surrounding localities, situated on three rings measured by their distance from the centre, is his-torical. There are 1,280 localities in the region and seven geographical dé-partements (Paris is both a city and a département). The first ring is made up of 21 localities; the second ring concentrates 400 localities. The Great-er Paris Project was launched in 2008, and aimed at overcoming the insti-tutional, social and cultural fragmentations caused by so many départe-ments and localities, each with a Mayor and a City Council with the power to decide on public issues. The new Paris-Métropole (MGP), approved by the House of Representatives in July 2013, was to include 8 residents out of 10 in Greater Paris by 2016 — 124 localities, 19 merged localities (inter-communalités), four départements (Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Val-de-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis) plus the region Ile-de-France. MGP was to be in charge of housing, pollution and traffic problems. However, this has yet to be ap-proved by the Senate due to large opposition to such political and adminis-trative reorganization. Nothing has yet been done to reduce the territorial and social inequality that plagues the metropolitan area. Meanwhile intense political maneuvering increases.

The region (IDF) retains important powers, however, which impact Paris directly. The schemes for buses and subway lines are elaborat-ed both at the metropolitan and regional levels with the approval of state authorities. The syndicate of public transportation for the region (STIF) and the RATP (régie autonome des transports parisiens) have to report to the State. 800,000 people commute to Paris from the per-iphery every day and 300,000 Parisians leave the city daily to work in the periphery. The city owns canals, which pass through 120 localities, rivers and aqueducts, and garbage substations managed by the city and 88 other localities. This garbage treatment affects 8 million resi-dents and four plants in adjacent localities. The city also owns cem-eteries, parks and building lots yielded to national power and utilities services; all to be found in the adjacent periphery. In view of these new schemes, the mayors of the banlieues refuse to take charge of what belongs to Paris (cemeteries, garbage, etc.) even if these are located outside of the city. The city also manages

20,000 units of public housing spread across 34 localities, managed by the Paris Central Office of Public Housing, OPAC (Office public d'aménagement et de construction). Since 2001, however, the city gov-ernment of Paris has established more or less loose links with sur-rounding localities. Charters have been signed between the city and adjacent localities aiming for better cooperation. These acts might con-cern the covering of the ring road around the city, electric tramway ex-tensions, or the development of sports centers, recreation spaces and cultural events etc. But these forms of agreement remain limited and fragile.

On Transportation and Economic Development

While Paris and the first ring have a dense distribution in terms of pub-lic transport, housing and population, the second ring and the third ring lack the same type of public transport network and employment diversity. Consequently, the space of those peripheries, as is often the case, is more loosely populated by successions of uniform cottages and, sporadically, long chains of massive public housing, often poorly served by public transport. A Greater Paris should ideally generate mixed-use polycentralities around connexions, flux, sites and landscapes beyond the central city, which may remain politically and administratively dominant but not prevent other cen-tres within the metropolitan space from interconnecting. Hubs of transpor-tation should definitely reorganize the spider's web that centralized Paris represents. The new transportation scheme aiming at linking 200 km of the region by subway is planned to start in 2015. All the lines should be com-pleted between 2020 and 2030. This driverless subway in the figure of eight, will link wealth-generating business clusters (industrial parks, research and technology areas and airports) to marginalized and underdeveloped banlieues, with mobility and proximity as major goals. 90% of the regional population should be less than 2 km away from a station. The new express subway should generate over 115,000 jobs worth a resulting economic boost around the stations. But no scientific report has established that this sce-nario would materialize, according to Treasury experts.

On Density and Environmental Concerns

Historical Paris has twice the density of London. Densifying the second and third rings of Paris is an ecological necessity. Due to poor public trans-portation, this is where residents use their cars the most, hence pollut-ing the atmosphere with carbon dioxide and excessively contributing to global warming. The question here is not whether to have more sprawling

An object of fascination — urban peripheries in Paris are perceived as lacking economic dynamism, social status, inclusion and civility, requiring a variety of governmental measures to keep them afloat

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banlieues. All experts agree on retrofitting — building on the built and re-specting very rich agrarian soil, in line with the Kyoto agreements on re-duced energy consumption. Designs go from nebulous localities towards a porous metropolitan area, with linkages either below the ground or on the surface, and landscaping and green carpets even on top of buildings. If Par-is is linked to Le Havre along the ocean, nature will alternate with the city spaces. New forests dispersed in the urban zones could provide resources for building and heating and would help fight pollution (near an airport for example).

Another idea comes out of the flexibility given to dense housing that usually suburban dwellers resent. Yet there is always the desire to spend less on energy. One innovative architectural scheme emerges when households have mature children, in that they should be able to increase the height of their homes; or then be able to reduce their size when they get older in order to reduce energy expenditure. The pres-ence of the River Seine stimulates the imagination. More use could be made of large and small rivers to alleviate road traffic and pollu-tion. For example, the transportation of freight on the Seine can re-place 200 trucks on the roads. But it could also be possible to densify the river environment with attractive housing and tourist activities. People could discover a collective identity by living along water. Due to the new energy context, innovative industrial jobs could also be developed.

Overcoming the Fear of Otherness Leading to Spatial and Social Separation

In the history of social representations, the fear of banlieues has replaced those born out of the ill-famed neighbourhoods in the historical city. An ob-ject of fascination for the media, filmmakers, writers, and artists in general, these urban peripheries in Paris are perceived in terms of their deficiencies (the lack of economic dynamism, social status, inclusion and civility), re-quiring all kinds of governmental measures meant to keep them afloat. Ter-ritorialized policies, also called politique de la ville, address the social ques-tion (relabeled the 'urban question') and territorial decay, but are a mixed blessing.

On the one hand, they bring some relief to poverty, dysfunctional housing and social handicaps by launching urban renewal interventions based on social mix, well-designed housing, all set in a better environment with im-proved transportation. Mayors are, of course, fond of such programs that em-bellish their localities. They are also well-funded and hardly controversial. However, the social problems are more difficult to solve. Policies support job creation for young people via better training and public funding (subsidized

jobs). But problems remain as generations move out, and migration patterns bring new poor and young households in first-entry locations. The difficul-ties of strangers living among strangers persist. Public policies seem never adjusted enough to the global economic and social problems as they perco-late down to the receiving end of these banlieues. Domestically, social pre-vention and territorial policies tend to stigmatize the very places and recipi-ents that they aid by selecting them on the basis of their widely publicized handicaps. What can be done to counter the communication of such negative markers? On one hand, changing the vocabulary may be helpful. In collective representations, references to zones, belts, banlieues, cités, etc. evoke a dan-gerous ‘otherness’ and numerous types of failure. Instead of using a generic negative term to refer to urban peripheries, why not address these localities via positive correlations associated with magnet schools, scientific centres, theatres, operas, parks, decentralized ministries or excellent architects? Why not draw attention instead to its emerging forms of culture, the vitality of multicultural youth and all other kinds of successes in order to balance the colossal weight of a culture too often reflecting the taste of the elite?

Multi-communal metropolises experience problems of identity be-cause they too frequently convey an image of a cultural vacuum. There is no epic narration of the metropolis, no identity, no story emphasiz-ing their assets in a long-term perspective. This is a specific problem tied to France, due to a long historical past dominated by Paris as the capital. In the Parisian region, who speaks lyrically and spontaneously of the large terrace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye with a spectacular view on Paris, of the banks of the Marne river evoked on the photographs of Robert Doisneau, the Basilique and theater of Saint-Denis, or the nearby forests and valleys and the multicultural festivals? The budget allocated to urban policies aiming at metropolitan cohesion, in terms of information and communication, is generally quite small and Paris remains as ‘a heart cut from its members’. Urban policy communica-tion does indeed focus on specific actions in space and time but not on long-term plans, for instance, in housing or transportation policies benefiting the whole country. Historian Annie Fourcault noticed that, in France, the shortage of low-cost housing started at the end of the 19th century and continued throughout the next century. The urban policy initiated in the 1980s allowed more than half of the residents of problem areas to have access to public housing projects. She implies that this urban policy did not merely focus on marginalized urban areas at the periphery but on former industrial cities and on city cen-ters, cementing them via a common approach. In the 1990s, the Soli-darity and Urban Renewal act had the same intention. It was meant to erase disparities between rich and poor localities and required all localities to offer 20% of public housing to their residents. But this law was never properly enforced. Conservative mayors supported by their constituencies prefer indeed to pay fines rather than respect the law.

For an outsider, all these peripheries look alike and the placelessness is striking: the same type of public transportation, same railway stations, malls, fast-food restaurants and parking lots

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On Overcoming Urban Violence

Problem areas at the northeast periphery of Paris are only flashpoints in the widely urbanized metropolis. They do not form a continuous ribbon. The major problem for Greater Paris, and it is not a simple one, is to com-bine social cohesion and territorial coherence into a unique project. Urban segregation, social marginalization, and the deficit of adequate public ser-vices generate numerous forms of frustrations leading to individual vio-lence and collective disorders, as was the case in the Paris metropolitan area in the fall of 2005. The interpretations given to those events are too numerous to be listed here (Body-Gendrot, 2012; 2013). But it should be em-phasized that urban violence is not the norm; it rarely happens, despite me-dia coverage giving the impression that there is a constant war going on in the banlieues.

Residents living in massive highrise projects accumulate grievances about their environments, and blame those who designed them without any con-sultation with them. They do feel that they have a right to the city, with de-cent and quiet housing, safety, good schools for their children, adequate services and places of living reflecting their image as citizens, as urban strollers, as friendly neighbours. As the economic situation worsens for them and public schemes take too much time to offer any relief, many vent their anger by giving support to extremist political parties’ ideas.

It is therefore urgent to restore a sense of citizenship and self-respect for these populations via social media, and also to empower the residents through participation in common projects. A governmental report released in July 2013, based on a survey on residents from these areas, offers numer-ous potential proposals. Currently, however, it may be politically difficult for governmental elites to enforce them. Community policing, for example, seems to be a way for police and young residents to engage in a dialogue. But on both sides, antagonisms are so high that the idea of a 'reassuring po-lice', which would be accountable to the populations that they serve, is not conceivable in such areas.

To restore the residents' sense of belonging to a larger metropolitan and homeland matrix, respect must be paid to them, in the ways public em-ployees deal with them, in the design of the buildings and the environment in which they live and in the facilitation of their mobility by way of public transportation or with free-access electric streetcars. Reducing transporta-tion time would make possible a better social mix. The mixed use of shared space with other residents (via sports centres or open outdoor markets or leisure facilities, etc.) would also bring a social cohesion to fragmented spaces.

Counting on Local Cultures as a Motor for Action

Many localities exist with and without the metropolis. Each locality has in-deed its own population, its history, its projects and its relative autonomy. Yet at the same time, it is important that these localities become aware of their belonging to a larger metropolitan entity — a region, a transportation network, forests, rivers, lands, places of memory. Over the years, the poten-tial of these areas can be explored independently, separate from the politi-cal and administrative stages What kind of representations are conveyed by the population’s daily experience? To an outsider, all these peripheries look alike and the "placelessness of place" is striking: the same type of public transportation, same railway stations, malls, fast-food restaurants and park-ing lots. The outsiders' perceptions, including those of legal authorities, es-pecially the police, constitute a major dimension of social inequality and a durable force of determinism, which could be addressed more robustly. Too often, residents from the peripheries are condemned to the durable inequal-ity of their low-status microcosms, with no hope of larger transformations at the metropolitan level. And yet these localities have a savoir-faire, and place matters. Culture is not only a set of practices and social relations, or an adjustment to an en-vironment, but a continuous creation. As remarked by Henri Chombart de Lauwe and Robert Sampson among others, there are forms of identity and of culture leading to action, to creation, to innovations showing that groups, however deprived they may be, know how to cast the dice from the social positions they are in and find new solutions in their relations to their en-vironment. Innovation may bypass existing rules and laws and compen-sate for the lack of objective resources. One has in mind innovative games for the very young, or shared transportation. The social efficacy and coher-ence in such apparently disorganized environments may lead to new social exchanges and conflict resolution which could inspire planners, architects and other decision-makers if they took the time to listen and observe.

— The health of societies depends on social cohesion and territorial coher-ence within a polycentric metropolitan design.— The continuous concentration of diverse people in metropolises sends a clear message of resilience and trust in their own civic capacities. — What is uncertain, perplexing and contradictory should not be feared but welcomed as an embryo for solutions.