Public space and the metropolis. The changing governance of public spaces around the Grand Paris Express's new metro stations

ABSTRACT

Megaprojects and their public spaces have often been criticized as sites of commodification and privatization. Without questioning these trends, a growing body of research affirms the contingent nature of projects, requiring in-depth empirical studies. This paper focuses on the implementation of Grand Paris Express, a transport mega-project, from a public-space perspective. We draw on the case of La Courneuve Six-Routes station to analyze the growing complexity of public space governance in Greater Paris. In so doing, we offer an additional contribution to the literature. The main driver of change in public space policies is interterritorial governance between local, metropolitan and national levels, not private actors. Moreover, the design principles and implementation processes do not provide for iconic, commodified and sanitized public spaces. However, in their current configuration, the politics of these public spaces remains ambivalent, because of the importance of real estate development in the network's future implementation.

KEYWORDS:

• Design
• public space
• governance
• megaproject
• planning
• Grand Paris Express

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Jeanne Dufranc for her involvement in the early stages of this research. We would also like to thank José Ignacio Vila Vazquez, for the additional insights gained from his post-doctorate, as well as the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments. Finally, we are grateful to Géographie-cités and Lab’URBA for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Ile-de-France is the name of the region to which Paris belongs.

2 By “Greater Paris” we refer broadly to the space of metropolitan influence of Paris. When referring to the administrative metropolitan area created in 2016, we use its official title: Métropole du Grand Paris or the abbreviation MGP.

3 A wordplay with “grand pari” (major bet).

4 Halpern and Le Galès (2020, p. 314) dismissed Grand Pari(s) as a “very mediatic competitive process, but of little importance.”

5 More than 10 years have passed since the GPE was announced; the Société du Grand Paris exists, many tunnels have been dug, and construction has begun for some of network's future stations. First inaugurations are expected in 2024.

6 Both words translate as “station” in English. Yet, in French, the word station is employed for everyday metro stations, with no/little exterior construction and a mostly functional architecture. The word gare is used for train stations thus invoking an imaginary of urban and architectural landmarks.

7 AMO defines a practice in which the institution steering a given project (the maîtrise d’ouvrage) hires external input to assist in steering activities.

8 The group includes two other landscape design and urban planning studios, a light designer and consultants on mobility, climatic comfort, temporary urbanism and public participation.

9 Generally, pole committees work between two and four years, delivering a reference plan at the end. As construction approaches, design teams are appointed to create the new public spaces (2–4 years), which are subsequently implemented (2–4 years).

10 The National Agency for Urban Renewal (ANRU, see Boisseuil, 2016) finances and co-determines public space refurbishments in neighborhoods undergoing state-sponsored renewal.

11 The Métropole du Grand Paris has no competence over public space. More generally, it has low political clout and struggles to subsist, as preexisting local government institutions – in particular the départements it was supposed to replace – maintain considerable influence (Lefèvre, 2019).

12 EPT were created in 2016. They are legally responsible for providing a limited number of competencies (sanitation, water and waste management …) to member municipalities. Other infrastructure management services, including those related to public spaces, are left to local power balances.

13 These seven municipalities bring together 429,000 inhabitants in a territory corresponding to half the area of the municipality of Paris.

14 Technically, both the département and the EPT have overseeing powers, as they are both affected by the station's future perimeter. However, the département was given executive responsibilities on the matter.

15 The initial contrasting planning scenarios were less ambitious: “diffuse” vs. “dense” station designs in reference to the location of other transport modes (mainly bus stops, but also electric cars and bicycle parking).

Additional information

Funding

This article is partially based on research undertaken within “Gares et Territoires du Grand Paris Express”, a collective research project undertaken at the Ecole d’urbanisme de Paris (Paris School of Urban Planning) and funded by the Agence nationale pour la rénovation urbaine (National Urban Renewal Agency), the Commissariat général à l’égalité des territoires (the General Commission for Territorial Equality) and the Société du Grand Paris in 2017.