The politics of social mix in the Paris metropolitan area

Abstract

Social mix is a key dimension of housing policy to reduce segregation in different urban contexts, but it is frequently associated with a strategy of gentrification linked to the neoliberal restructuring of housing systems. Prior studies, however, tend to overlook the political and institutional mechanisms that influence the practices and outcomes of social mix. Building on fieldwork in a former working-class municipality in Paris suburbs, I draw on the theory of gradual institutional change to examine the politics of social mix. I show that evolving power relations among housing policy actors, fostered by political alignment and multiple office-holding processes, pave the way for gradual institutional changes based on conversion. These modifications to the local institutional arrangement shape new directions in housing policy that lead to the restructuring of the built environment and neighbourhood socioeconomic ascent. Overall, I contend that contextualized institutional and political processes are key to explaining the practices of social mix and their link with neoliberalisation and gentrification.

Keywords:

• Politics
• institutions
• housing policy
• social mix
• gentrification

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the referees and the editors of Housing Studies for their valuable comments and suggestions. I am also grateful to Maxime Audinet, Marco Oberti and Michael Storper for their feedbacks on earlier versions of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 County refers to the administrative division Département, which stands between regions and municipalities. The close suburbs of Paris metropolitan area have three counties: Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne.

2 The Garden City is an urban model that relies on various principles: low density, public land control, public housing, integration of economic, cultural and health facilities. The construction started in 1924 in Plessis-Robinson.

3 Eight developers participated in the construction of the city centre and fourteen in the renovation of the Garden City.

4 For instance, between 1990 and 1997, the CPHO invested 35 million francs (5 million euros) each year for the rehabilitation of public housing units.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the French National Research Agency (grant reference: ANR-10-EQPX-17) and by the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies (grant reference: ANID/FONDAP/15130009).

Notes on contributors

Quentin Ramond

Quentin Ramond is an assistant professor at the Institute of Urban and Territorial Studies of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. His research interests include urban sociology, housing markets, sociology of education, public policy and social stratification.