https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3429-8357
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ABSTRACT
This article compares how state-initiated mass housing urbanization has contributed to processes of peripheralization in three very different historical and geopolitical settings: in Paris from the 1950s to the 1990s in Hong Kong from the 1950s to 2010s and in Mexico City from the 1990s to the 2010s. We understand mass housing urbanization as large-scale industrial housing production based on the intervention of state actors into the urbanization process which leads to the strategic re-organization of urban territories. In this comparison across space and time we focus particularly on how, when and to what degree this urbanization process leads to the peripheralization of settlements and entire neighbourhoods over the course of several decades. This long-term perspective allows us to evaluate not only the decisive turns and ruptures within governmental rationales but also the continuities and contradictions of their territorial effects. Finally, we develop a taxonomy of different modalities of peripheralization that might serve as a conceptual tool for further urban research.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to all interview partners and scholars who shared their knowledge on Hong Kong, Mexico City, and Paris with us. For their support, inspiration and discussion about the research on which this paper is based, we are grateful to Keith Kwok Kuen Au, Wing Yin Chan, Chi Lap Jacky Lee, and Wing-shing Tang (for Hong Kong); Miguel Ángel Gonzalez, Isadora Hastings, Graciela Vázquez (for Mexico); and Assad Ali-Cherif, Martine Berger, Léopold Lambert, Paul Landauer and Benoît Pouvreau (for Paris).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Streule et al., “Popular Urbanization. Conceptualizing Urbanization Processes Beyond Informality”.
2 See, e.g., Power, Hovels to High Rise; Dufaux and Fourcaut, Le monde des grands ensembles; Urban, Tower and Slab; Glendinning, Mass Housing.
3 Aalbers, The Financialisation of Housing. A Political Economy Approach; Jacobs, Neoliberal Housing Policy; and Rolnik, Urban Warfare.
4 Beyer, Die Produktion sozialistischer Urbanität; and Clapson, A Social History of Milton Keynes.
5 Aalbers, “Towards a Relational and Comparative Rather than a Contrastive Global Housing Studies”.
6 See Kühn, “Peripheralization: Theoretical Concepts”; Kühn and Bernt, “Peripheralization and Power”.
7 Fischer-Tahir and Naumann, Peripheralization; Kühn, Peripherisierung und Stadt.
8 Kühn and Bernt, “Peripheralization and Power”, 312; Kühn, Peripherisierung und Stadt, 76; Kühn, “Peripheralization: Theoretical Concepts”.
9 Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution, 109–10, 150; Schmid, Henri Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production of Space, chapter 4.
10 Sassen, Cities in a World Economy, 319–24.
11 Wacquant, Urban Outcasts.
12 Howe, Spatiality of Poverty.
13 Engels, “Zur Wohnungsfrage”.
14 For the conducted empirical research, we used qualitative methods including qualitative interviews, mobile and multi-sited ethnography, and a specific form of mapping allowing us to integrate knowledge of various urban actors (for a detailed discussion, see Schmid et al., “Towards a New Vocabulary of Urbanisation Processes: A Comparative Approach“.).
15 Lefebvre, Right to the City, 151.
16 Schmid et al., “Towards a New Vocabulary of Urbanisation Processes: A Comparative Approach“; Robinson, “Thinking Cities Through Elsewhere: Comparative Tactics for a More Global Urban Studies”; “Introduction: Generating Concepts of ‘the urban’ Through Comparative Practice “; Becker, Global Players; McFarlane, “The Comparative City”.
17 Robinson, “Introduction: Generating concepts of ‘the urban’ through comparative practice”, 1528.
18 Schmid et al, “Towards a new Vocabulary of Urbanisation Processes: A Comparative Approach”; Streule et al., “Popular Urbanization. Conceptualizing Urbanization Processes Beyond Informality”.
19 The term grands ensemble is a discursive term but is not juridically defined (as is the ZUP). For an attempt at a definition of the time, see Lacoste, “Un problème complexe et débattu”.
20 Bertrand, “Le confort des logements”.
21 Effosse, L'invention du logement aidé, 275–98.
22 Driant, Les politiques du logement, 77−80, 99. In 1976, semi-public housing providers owned 40 per cent of social housing units at national scale; see Glendinning, Mass Housing, 171–2.
23 Landauer, L'invention du grand ensemble, 246–52.
24 Kipfer, “Démolition, mixité et contre-révolution”, 210–11; Fredenucci, “L’entregent colonial des ingénieurs”, 79–91; Henni, Architecture of Counterrevolution.
25 Vadelorge, Retour sur les villes nouvelles; Effosse, “Paul Delouvrier et les villes nouvelles”, 75–86.
26 Décret n° 58–1464 relatif aux zones à urbaniser en priorité.
27 Jamois, Les zones à urbaniser par priorité, 235–36. At the national scale, 197 ZUPs contained 2.3 million housing units.
28 In 1976 and at national scale, France had 1,200 active social housing (HLM) companies divided 60–40 per cent between public (OPHLM) and semi-public (SAHLM) housing providers. See Glendinning, Mass Housing, 172; Fourcaut, “Qu'elle était belle la banlieue … ”
29 Nivet, “La formation du bastion gaulliste”, 251.
30 Annuaire statistique de la France.
31 Godard et al., La rénovation urbaine à Paris, 12–14; Coing, Rénovation urbaine.
32 Régie immobilière de la Ville de Paris (RIVP), Société anonyme de gestion immobilière (SAGI), office public HLM de Paris (OPHLM de Paris).
33 Pouvreau, “Quand Paris logeait ses pauvres”; Landauer and Pouvreau, “Les Courtillières”, 75.
34 Tricart, “Genèse d'un dispositif d'assistance”, 608.
35 Groupe de sociologie urbaine de Nanterre, “Paris 1970”.
36 Between the Parisian Commune from 1871 and 1977, Paris did not have a maire but was directly administrated by the state via the “Préfet de la Seine”, who was directly nominated.
37 See Vadelorge, Retour sur les villes nouvelles, 106, 116.
38 Clerc, Grands ensembles, 61–3; Huguet, Les femmes dans les grands ensembles, 79, 81.
39 Cupers, The Social Project, 243–52.
40 As illustrated by Christiane Rochefort’s novel Children of Heaven (1962) and investigated by Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies.
41 Coing, Rénovation urbaine, 91.
42 Raymond et al., L’habitat pavillonnaire, 29.
43 Kleinman, “France”, 79–85.
44 Lefebvre, Mouillart, and Occhipinti, Politique du logement, 33–44.
45 Bourdieu and Christin, “La construction du marché”, 67; Kleinman, “France”, 60–68; Lefebvre, Mouillart, and Occhipinti, Politique du logement, 52–4.
46 Kockelkorn, “Palace on Mortgage. The Collapse of a Social Housing Monument in France.”
47 Tricart, “Genèse d'un dispositif d'assistance”, 615; Gastaut, “Les Bidonvilles”, 4.
48 Gastaut, “Les Bidonvilles”, 2.
49 Tricart, “Genèse d'un dispositif d'assistance”, 606; Viet, “La politique du logement des immigrés”, 93, 95–6.
50 Gastaut, “Les Bidonvilles”, 5; Tricart, “Genèse d'un dispositif d'assistance”, 605, 619–21.
51 Tanter and Toubon, “Le mouvement HLM”, 51–2.
52 Tellier, Politiques de la ville, 287; David, “La resorption des bidonvilles de Saint Denis”; Blanc-Chaléard, “De la résorption des bidonvilles”, 15;
53 Lévy-Vroelant, Schaefer, and Tutin, “Social Housing in France”, 136. In 2020, the income ceiling for social housing in the Paris region for a young couple was at €57,000, which corresponds to the 10 per cent of highest incomes of the entire French population.
54 Housing inquiries by INSEE and Mission économique de l’Union Nationale des Fédérations d’Organisme d’HLM.
55 Kockelkorn, “The Social Condenser II—Eine Archäologie zu Wohnungsbau und Zentralität in der Pariser Banlieue am Beispiel der Wohnungsbauten von Ricardo Bofill und Taller de Arquitectura”, 155−220.
56 For key data on the Agence Nationale de Rénovation Urbaine (ANRU), see https://www.anru.fr/les-chiffres-cles-de-lanru, accessed 7.2.2021.
57 In 2006, the share of social housing units in the region was at 23 per cent. It rose to 25 per cent in 2015 and shrank to 22 per cent in 2019. From 2006 to 2019, the region’s population grew from 11.5 to 12.2 million inhabitants.
58 Mark, Hong Kong and the Cold War.
59 Smart, The Shek Kip Mei Myth.
60 Home, Of Planting and Planning.
61 Yeung, Fifty Years of Public Housing, 21.
62 Carroll, A Concise History of Hong Kong.
63 Mizuoka, Contrived Laissez-Faireism.
64 HKAR 1956, 9.
65 Castells et al., The Shek Kip Mei Syndrome; Mizuoka, Contrived Laissez-Faireism.
66 Ho, Challenges for an Evolving City; Mizuoka, Contrived Laissez-Faireism.
67 Chiu, The Politics of Laissez-faire.
68 Castells et al., The Shek Kip Mei Syndrome.
69 Jao, “The Rise of Hong Kong as a Financial Center.”
70 Ma, Political Development in Hong Kong.
71 Lam, Understanding the Political Culture of Hong Kong; Liu and Smart, “Learning from Civil Unrest”.
72 Faure, “Reflections on Being Chinese in Hong Kong”.
73 Yep and Lui, “Revisiting the Golden Era”.
74 Smart, ,Shek Kip Mei Myth‘, 6.
75 Ho, Making Hong Kong.
76 La Grange, “Housing (1997–2007)”.
77 Tang, “Hong Kong under Chinese Sovereignty”.
78 Tse and Ganesan, “Hong Kong”.
79 Smart and Lee, “Financialization and the Role of Real Estate”.
80 Yeung, Moving Millions.
81 “Nightmare in a Dormitory Town”.
82 Lee, “City of Sorrow”.
83 Housing Authority, Marking Scheme for Estate Management Enforcement.
84 Chen and Pun, “Neoliberalization and Privatization”.
85 Villavicencio and Durán, “Treinta años de vivienda social”; Maya and Cervantes, La producción de vivienda.
86 Salinas, “Política de vivienda social”.
87 Streule, Ethnografie urbaner Territorien. Metropolitane Urbanisierungsprozesse von Mexiko-Stadt.
88 Streule, “Tracing the developmentalist regime of productivity: nation, urban space, and workers’ habitat in Mexico City, 1940s–1970s”; Streule et al., “Popular Urbanization. Conceptualizing urbanization processes beyond informality”.
89 Soederberg, “Subprime Housing Goes South”.
90 Álvarez, “Nuevo modo de regulación”.
91 Isunza and Méndez, “Desarrollo inmobiliario”; Varley and Salazar, “The Impact of Mexico’s Land Reform”.
92 Fausto, “De las reservas territoriales”.
93 Boils, “El Banco Mundial”.
94 UN-Habitat, Housing Finance Mechanisms.
95 Sánchez Casanova, “¿Derecho a la vivienda, o derecho al crédito para la vivienda?”
96 Valenzuela and Tsenkova, “Build It and They Will Come”; see also Rolnik, “Neoliberalismo reciente”.
97 Hastings, “El problema cualitativo”.
98 Puebla, Del intervencionismo estatal.
99 Valenzuela and Tsenkova, “Build It and They Will Come”, 499; see also Isunza and Méndez, “Desarrollo inmobiliario”.
100 Maya and Cervantes, “La importancia del espacio exterior”.
101 Valenzuela and Tsenkova, “Build It and They Will Come”, 496.
102 Valenzuela, “Failed Markets”, 48.
103 Soederberg, “Subprime Housing Goes South”, 483.
104 Ross, Fast Cars, Clean Bodies.
105 Foucault, Birth of Biopolitics, 194−209.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Anne Kockelkorn
Anne Kockelkorn is Assistant Professor for History and Theory of the City at the Department for Architecture and Urban Planning at Ghent University. Her research is focused on the intersections between housing design, territorial politics and processes of subjectivation.
Christian Schmid
Christian Schmid is sociologist, geographer und urban researcher. He is Professor at the Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich. His scientific work is on planetary urbanization, comparative urban analysis, and theories of urbanization and of space. He is a founding member of the International Network for Urban Research and Action (INURA).
Monika Streule
Monika Streule is an urban scholar and a Marie-Skłodowska Curie Fellow at the London School of Economics Latin America and Caribbean Centre. Her research engages with the social production of territory, urbanization processes and methods and methodology of qualitative research.
Kit Ping Wong
Kit-Ping Wong holds a PhD in urban sociology (ETHZ). At Future Cities Laboratory Singapore, she has researched both urbanization in a comparative perspective and extended urbanization, with a focus on urban theory and politics in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta.