A historical analysis of policies and programs in Paris shows that the city has come a long way in terms of seeking effective social housing policies and programs, and has indeed achieved its goals to make affordable housing available within the city limits, albeit with some concerns remaining over the spatial distribution of units. Findings from site visits show that physical manifestations of changing neighborhood demographics appear to be present in la Goutte d’Or, though less so in the 16th arrondissement. Interviews also support previous research that interactions between differing ethnic and social groups appear to be minimal. Furthermore, interviews suggest that improving efforts on behalf of city officials to communicate their rationale for creating socially-mixed communities, as well as improving local schools and encouraging local community members and businesses to host social events, may also help facilitate social interactions between groups within these communities as well.

Winner of the 2015 Abbott Lowell Cummings prize from the Vernacular Architecture Forum Winner of the 2015 Sprio Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians Winner of the 2016 International Planning History Society Book Prize for European Planning History Honorable Mention: 2016 Wylie Prize in French Studies In the three decades following World War II, the French government engaged in one of the twentieth century’s greatest social and architectural experiments: transforming a mostly rural country into a modernized urban nation. Through the state-sanctioned construction of mass housing and development of towns on the outskirts of existing cities, a new world materialized where sixty years ago little more than cabbage and cottages existed. Known as the banlieue, the suburban landscapes that make up much of contemporary France are near-opposites of the historic cities they surround. Although these postwar environments of towers, slabs, and megastructures are often seen as a single utopian blueprint gone awry, Kenny Cupers demonstrates that their construction was instead driven by the intense aspirations and anxieties of a broad range of people. Narrating the complex interactions between architects, planners, policy makers, inhabitants, and social scientists, he shows how postwar dwelling was caught between the purview of the welfare state and the rise of mass consumerism. The Social Project unearths three decades of architectural and social experiments centered on the dwelling environment as it became an object of modernization, an everyday site of citizen participation, and a domain of social scientific expertise. Beyond state intervention, it was this new regime of knowledge production that made postwar modernism mainstream. The first comprehensive history of these wide-ranging urban projects, this book reveals how housing in postwar France shaped both contemporary urbanity and modern architecture.

This book focuses on socially mixed (e.g. by income, tenure, ethnicity or any other characteristic) communities developed through housing renewal and critically examines the policies and practices in view of the growing urban inequality. The volume expands the discussion to the second phase of social mix – “social mix version 2.0” and offers constructive reflections on how social mix can “be better conceived and delivered, with fewer negative side effects” . The chapters in this book cover diverse national contexts and policy backgrounds, and represent the perspectives of many key stakeholders, including national and local governments, services and NGOs, developers and, most importantly, residents. Chapters present diverse case studies from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Australia, and the United States and discuss projects that range in scale from small housing initiatives to neighborhoods and to whole districts. They focus on diverse experiences of social mix: between university students and young professionals and low-income social housing tenants, between older, low-income residents and younger, middle-class residents, between diverse ethnic and social class groups sharing a neighborhood, and between private and public housing residents. Chapters also vary on the tools used to create social mix, from local non-for-profit initiatives, a national policy intervention, and urban policies that aim to enhance social mix. Lastly, the book shows the range of analytical tools researchers have used to understand the diverse appearances of social mix, its underlying goals, and its consequent outcomes. These include comparative analyses of social mix in diverse national and political settings, including the Global East, an evaluation of social mix from the perspective of social justice, a historical analysis of the development of an urban district, and a design analysis of urban renewal projects. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Urban Affairs.

"...Offers a critical appraisal of different ways that the concept of 'social mix' has been constructed historically in urban planning and housing policy, including linking to 'social inclusion'. It investigates why social mix policies re-emerge as a popular policy tool at certain times. It also challenges the contemporary consensus in housing and urban planning policies that social mix is an optimum planning tool..."--Back cover.

This open access book explores the formation and socio-spatial trajectories of large housing estates in Europe. Are these estates clustered or scattered? Which social groups originally had access to residential space in housing estates? What is the size, scale and geography of housing estates, their architectural and built environment composition, services and neighbourhood amenities, and metropolitan connectivity? How do housing estates contribute to the urban mosaic of neighborhoods by ethnic and socio-economic status? What types of policies and planning initiatives have been implemented in order to prevent the social downgrading of housing estates? The collection of chapters in this book addresses these questions from a new perspective previously unexplored in scholarly literature. The social aspects of housing estates are thoroughly investigated (including socio-demographic and economic characteristics of current and past inhabitants; ethnicity and segregation patterns; population dynamics; etc.), and the physical composition of housing estates is described in significant detail (including building materials; building form; architectural and landscape design; built environment characteristics; etc.). This book is timely because the recent global economic crisis and Europe’s immigration crisis demand a thorough investigation of the role large housing estates play in poverty and ethnic concentration. Through case studies of housing estates in 14 European centers, the book also identifies policy measures that have been used to address challenges in housing estates throughout Europe.

Functioning as a toolkit for inclusive urban planning, this book acts as both a model for understanding the planning and management of this framework, and a foundation for future research.

The Poplars housing development in suburban Paris is home to what one resident called the “Little-Middles” – a social group on the tenuous border between the working- and middle- classes. In the 1960s The Poplars was a site of upward social mobility, which fostered an egalitarian sense of community among residents. This feeling of collective flourishing was challenged when some residents moved away, selling their homes to a new generation of upwardly mobile neighbors from predominantly immigrant backgrounds. This volume explores the strained reception of these migrants, arguing that this is less a product of racism and xenophobia than of anxiety about social class and the loss of a sense of community that reigned before.