Doctoral Dissertation Research: Urban Designers and the Production of Public Space in Belleville, Paris, France

Syracuse University, Syracuse NY

Investigators

Abstract

Although community and government leaders often promote programs that can lead to significant transformations of major parts of cities with terms that use the word "public" as an adjective, there is not one public but rather many different groups who have interests in "public space," "public works," and other manifestations of "public" activity. These different groups can have fundamentally different views of what is best for "the public," and the ways in which they organize space and interact with each other can have profound consequences for the groups individually and for the overall cumulative product. This Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award proposal outlined plans for a doctoral student to examine the transformations of public space in Belleville, a community in northeastern Paris, France, that now is dominated by relatively poor, recently arrived immigrants. The student will use ethnographic approaches to assess how the quarter's public spaces have developed as a result of the struggles between urban designers and local residents during the major redevelopment of the quarter in the 1990s. The study will focus on the urban development process itself, paying particular attention to the determining if and how immigrant struggles for political and representation have influenced the design process. The student will conduct archival research and use participant observation of both local residents and the design offices engaged in redevelopment efforts. This project will provide valuable new insights into the ways that different groups conceive of and deal with public spaces. In particular, it will shed light on the varying ways that urban designers, who often are situated far away from the sites where their designs are to be implemented, and residents based directly in affected communities participate in debates on the political economy of public space. The study will provide useful information to residents and designers in the study area, and its insights may have practical benefits for comparable actors in other communities. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.