La violence de la fabrique de la ville

Abstract

The violence of urban planning is often reduced to the socio-economic impact of urban transformations on the inhabitants. And, when there are criticisms of the demiurgic temptation of the architect-urban planner within major urban operations, they are for the most part nuanced when the approach of a project-based urbanism is claimed, which would be more integrative and horizontal. However, the examination of the Euroméditerranée project in Marseille, which claims to respect city as it stands, does not escape the observation of situations of social, symbolic and physical violence against the territory and the inhabitants. This article postulates that the violence of urban planning is present behind the scenes of the projections of the planners and in particular in the professionals’ difficulties to consider the inhabitants. This violence is questioned from behind the scenes of the Euroméditerranée Public Development Establishment (EPAEM), in Marseille, in charge of an urban renewal project declared Operation of National Interest in 1995. The article is based on an ethnography carried out between November 2013 and June 2016 and, more specifically, on observations of EPAEM planners carried out between November 2013 and June 2014.

Keywords

• Project urban planning
• urban anthropology
• Euroméditerranée
• violence
• planning developpers