Itinéraires (Jul 2017)
Identifier les « quartiers sensibles » dans les villes françaises : une quête sans cesse recommencée
Abstract
The end of the postwar “Thirty glorious years” also saw the end of several decades of a rise in the standard of living for working-class families. Following the escalation of inequalities from the end of the 1970s, French public authorities developed the concept of “geographic priorities” based on the principles of “positive discrimination” applied to certain urban spaces considered to become distinctive territories. The number of these was to increase between the directive in 1977 on “Housing and Social Activity” (HVS – Habitat et vie sociale) and the creation in 1996 of “Zones Urbaines Sensibles” (ZUS - meaning Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods) through the Développement Social des Quartiers project in 1984 (DSQ) (David 2001). Over the years, the positive discrimination mechanisms became more and more complex, being applied in more and more different ways to embedded perimeters. This was going to make it difficult to evaluate the actions destined to “restore normal living conditions” to places where the poorer urban populations live.Used for more than twenty years for social and town-planning operations, the ZUS were abolished in 2014 and replaced by new geographic priorities. How do these changes in method used by the Public Authorities help us identify poverty in towns? What do the objectives assigned to these “sensitive areas” tell us? What conceptions of the town and society lie behind them? What effect have the modified criteria had on the former qualifying zones? This article analyses the succession of indicators selected to identify the marginalized areas in French towns. In also questions the relevance of a territory-based approach in urban development policy which has been unsuccessful in changing all the marginalization processes and has sometimes led to an increase in the stigmatization of those living there. Finally, the article will endeavour to evaluate the consequences of the modifications implemented in 2014 on those areas formerly categorized as ZUS. New zones were defined, others disappeared from the detectors of geographic priorities. For the former, the “chance” to be recognized and to gain access to new measures underlines the difficulties involved; for the latter, is the abandon of support facilities the result of a significant improvement or just simply from a reduction in public funding leading to a concentration of resources on the most difficult cases?
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