L’habiter de certains éco-quartiers

Abstract

As eco-districts establish themselves as prototypes of urban planning models—often backed up by planning exercises conducted by private groups—a few grassroots or socially oriented eco-districts shed light on other ways of envisaging a dwelling. Contrasting with the functional codes of good conduct advocated in many urban hyper-centres (e.g. energy savings), such districts are the sites of specific ways of life and lifestyles. These attest to the residents’ desire to have greater control over the place where they live. These ways of life and lifestyles feed into a general individuation of social practices and experiences, which are converted into discrete forms of engagement and embedded in everyday action. This “infrapolitics” then develops into cosmopolitics by way of a particular axiology—closely connected to ecological issues such as responsibility—and by the independence conferred by new shared knowledge—whether local, vernacular or convivial—and new shared imaginaries of urban futures.

Keywords

• eco-district
• ways of life
• ecology
• common
• infrapolitics