‘Many Rivers to Cross’: Suburban Densification and the Social Status Quo in Greater Lyon

Rousseau, Max

doi:10.1111/1468-2427.12197

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…The first research began in the 2000s to investigate how suburbanites and periurbanites were taking control of their residential environment (Charmes, 2005(Charmes, , 2011. In the early 2010s, research on densification and compaction policies in the Lyon metropolitan area focused on Greater Lyon suburban municipalities (Charmes and Rousseau, 2014;Rousseau 2015). Lastly, ongoing doctoral research that began in 2016 is investigating how anti-sprawl policies are implemented in outer suburban municipalities (Amarouche and Charmes, 2019).…”

Section: Study Area and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…densification) to pursue its territorial development plans. This is a complex process and not simply a technical solution that stems from the moral imperative of sustainability (Quastel et al, 2012;Rousseau, 2015). To decipher this, our analysis "zooms in" on the metropolitan inner suburbs (located within Greater Lyon limits), focusing on the variations in local densification policies.…”

Section: "Densify and Conquer": The New Challenge Of The Metropolitanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, the compromise struck between some East Lyon mayors and Greater Lyon has helped make densification into a vector to strengthen East Lyon's economic development. As a result, the metropolitan status quo has been preserved and the social division that marks Lyon's suburbs has been reinforced (Rousseau, 2015).…”

Section: Conclusion: Politicizing the Debate On Urban Sprawlmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Politicising the debate on urban sprawl: The case of the Lyon metropolitan region

2020

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The fight against urban sprawl has become an international motto for planners. However, recent urban policies promoting ‘smart growth’ and ‘new urbanism’ are the subject of growing criticism from various scientific disciplines. This paper goes beyond the debate for or against sprawl to examine the political and social issues behind anti-sprawl policies. We show how and why urban compaction can be perceived as a burden or a resource, depending on the different sub-metropolitan territories concerned. These issues are discussed in the case of the second largest metropolitan area in France, the region of Lyon. The paper analyses how the national legislation on urban sprawl and the ‘compact city’ is implemented in the very diverse territories within Lyon’s metropolis and how some of those territories use it to their advantage. It reveals that the resulting compromises are deceptive and raise spatial justice issues. It also shows how compaction or densification are negotiated in the suburbs to preserve the status quo in wealthy municipalities.

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Section: Study Area and Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: "Densify and Conquer": The New Challenge Of The Metropolitanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Conclusion: Politicizing the Debate On Urban Sprawlmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Politicising the debate on urban sprawl: The case of the Lyon metropolitan region

2020

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“…In France, the word banlieues (which translates to suburbs in English) evokes images of apartment towers and barred windows (see Figures and ) rather than a grid‐like alignment of detached single‐family dwellings, and images of marginalized immigrant populations rather than a white middle‐class community fully integrated into the economy. As explained by Max Rousseau (, this issue) in the first part of his essay, this image can be explained by the particular role played by the French state in the production of the city. In Canada too the suburbs are not homogeneous neighbourhoods of single‐family homes, instead largely comprising higher‐density morphological forms of comprehensive socio‐economic and ethno‐cultural diversity (see below).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

The Politics of Post‐Suburban Densification in Canada and France

Charmes

Keil

2015

Int J Urban Regional Res

112

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International audienceThis debate specifically focuses on densification as a particular dimension of (post-) suburbanization. In the introduction, we discuss densification, along with ‘compactness’ and ‘intensification’, conceptual terms that have become buzzwords within urban planning. Objectives associated with these tend to be presented in the literature within a normative framework, structured by a critique of the negative effects attributed to sprawl. The perspective here is different. It is not normative but critical, and articulated around the analysis of political and social issues, related to the transformation of wider metropolitan space. Three main themes are developed: (1) the politics of densification (the environmental arguments favouring densification are highly plastic, and are thus often used to defend projects or initiatives which are actually determined by other agendas); (2) why morphology matters (a similar number of houses or square metres can be established in many different ways, and those different ways have political and social meaning); (3) the diversity of suburban densification regimes (it is not only the landscapes of the suburbs that are diverse, but also the local bodies governing them—between the small residential municipalities of the Paris periurbs and the large inner suburbs of Toronto lies a broad spectrum)

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“…Today, a series of legal documents produced at various levels of government (at state level, the Solidarity and Urban Renewal Act, the Grenelle Environmental Protection Acts, the Greater Paris Act, and more recently President François Hollande's new law on planning and housing; at regional level, the 2008 Master Plan for Île‐de‐France) encourages urban densification in the Paris city‐region. Due to the nature and status of these documents, French municipalities now play a central role in the elaboration and implementation of densification policies (see Rousseau, , this issue). Individual municipalities can not only decide whether or not they will implement densification policies, but also how they will go about it.…”

Section: Densification Policies In the Paris City‐regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hard and Soft Densification Policies in the Paris City‐Region

Touati-Morel

2015

Int J Urban Regional Res

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This essay is concerned with the planning and densification of suburbs, which present a huge challenge insofar as they form a large area of urbanized land that remains underexploited due to low residential density. Drawing on current research in the Paris cityregion, the essay focuses specifically on the difficulty in implementing densification policies in low-rise suburban areas. It examines the varying degrees of densification fostered by these policies, and builds upon recent urban studies literature on suburban change to trace how suburban areas are being transformed through regulations, instruments and market dynamics associated with densification processes. What kinds of densification policy are being implemented and what are the socio-economic, political and cultural determinants of each type of regulatory approach? This essay will attempt to answer this question via an analysis of the densification policies being put in place in the municipalities of the Paris city-region. It will offer in turn a typology of these different policies. It shows that densification is an instrument that can be used to address local political concerns which vary greatly depending on the economic, social and geographical position of municipalities within larger urban areas.

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‘Many Rivers to Cross’: Suburban Densification and the Social Status Quo in Greater Lyon

Abstract: Abstract

Cited by 20 publications

References 13 publications

Politicising the debate on urban sprawl: The case of the Lyon metropolitan region

Politicising the debate on urban sprawl: The case of the Lyon metropolitan region

The Politics of Post‐Suburban Densification in Canada and France

Hard and Soft Densification Policies in the Paris City‐Region

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