Social stakes of urban renewal: recent French housing policy

Abstract The social implications of urban restructuring, especially the spatial approach of urban renewal, are important indicators for the building stock, as this impacts on demolition and reconstruction. The social stakes of urban renewal reside in both its political intent and its social effects. Ongoing socio-economic difficulties have led to a shift in French public policy on disadvantaged neighbourhoods, moving from the promotion of local social and economic development to an increasing fear of concentrating local communities or 'ghettos'. Social mix has become a policy objective for these neighbourhoods, and urban renewal as the means to achieve it. Although the effects of this policy are currently hard to assess, three social stakes can nonetheless be identified, partly based on the results of ongoing research at Les Minguettes, a suburb of Lyon, France. First, contemporary urban renewal tends to erode the stock of affordable housing, without bringing noticeable improvements in housing conditions. Second, this policy weakens the inhabitants' social capital, a resource strongly locally anchored in working-class milieus. Finally, social mix tends to transform local forms of coexistence in unpredictable ways, with no guarantee of the anticipated positive cooperation between locals and newcomers. L'approche spatiale de la rénovation urbaine, une politique de gestion du parc bâti consistant principalement à démolir et reconstruire des logements, a des implications sociales importantes. Les enjeux sociaux de la rénovation urbaine résident à la fois dans ses intentions politiques et dans ses conséquences sociales. Les difficultés socioéconomiques actuelles ont conduit à un changement de la politique publique française à l'égard des quartiers défavorisés, qui est passée de la promotion du développement social et économique local à une crainte croissante des regroupements communautaires ou de la formation de «ghettos». La mixité sociale est devenue un objectif des politiques visant ces quartiers et la rénovation urbaine le moyen d'y parvenir. Bien que les effets de cette politique soient actuellement difficiles à évaluer, trois enjeux sociaux peuvent néanmoins être identifiés, en se basant pour partie sur les résultats de recherches en cours aux Minguettes, en banlieue de Lyon, en France. Tout d'abord, la rénovation urbaine d'aujourd'hui a tendance à grignoter le parc des logements abordables, sans que cela se traduise par des améliorations sensibles des conditions de logement. En second lieu, cette politique affaiblit le capital social des habitants, une ressource fortement ancrée localement dans les milieux populaires. Enfin, la mixité sociale a tendance à transformer les formes locales de coexistence de manière imprévisible, sans garantie de la coopération positive escomptée entre les anciens et les nouveux habitants. Mots clés: parc bâti, démolition, politique du logement, quartier, capital social, mixité sociale, rénovation urbaine, France Keywords: building stockdemolitionhousing policyneighbourhoodsocial capitalsocial mixurban renewalFrance Notes This case study comprises a range of empirical material: 20 interviews with inhabitants, statistical analysis of populating data, as well as some ethnographic observations of local social life. This French neologism means the clannishness or cliquishness of a specific community within the nation. Projects are defined as contracts between the State and local public partners, mainly social housing institutions and local authorities. But as access to subsidies offered by the French national urban renewal programme is limited by stringent criteria, Epstein Citation(2008) remarks that local projects exhibit quite a low degree of diversity. This is quite far from urban restructuring situations where local stakeholders play a major role, e.g. housing associations in the Netherlands (Verhage, Citation2005a) or local community and business interests in UK (Hall and Hickman, Citation2002). In Citation2007, André Gerin, the Communist Mayor of Vénissieux (the town in which Les Minguettes is located) published a book under the somewhat controversial title Les ghettos de la République (The Ghettos of the Republic). This trend towards generally local moves is confirmed by different surveys on rehousing in renewed neighbourhoods (Lelévrier, Citation2008).