When promoting social mix leads to support gentrification: The case of Paris

Since the last decades the role of public policies in gentrification has been outlined by many academics. Especially, Neil Smith (1996) analyses New York public policies in the nineties as revanchists and clearly supporting gentrification. But are there only revanchist or neoliberal policies which support gentrification? Although the city of Paris is not widely known for its gentrification, this process of social and urban conquest of working-class neighborhoods by a new middle class was well-advanced in 2001, when a left mayor was elected. The new mayor, Bertrand Delanoë, who was reelected in 2008, put forward a new goal for city planning: promoting social mix in every part of the city. Emphasizing social mix in each public discourse was held up as a total break with the past right policies. The main policy which is supposed to break with the past is the relaunching of public social housing. The left policy in Paris can be characterized by a strong public action and the promotion of a shared city between the different social and ethnic groups, generations and genders. This presentation will be divided in three parts: first, I will give an an overview of the actors, factors and spatial dynamics involved in the gentrification process since the 1980s; second, I will focus on the relaunching of social housing and its limits since 2001; third, I will present the other public policies which promote beautification and culture and how they combine with the social mix goal. I will show the global coherence of these different policies and how, despite this highly publicized social mix goal, they still foster gentrification.