Métropoles (Jan 2019)
Commerce et politiques publiques dans les quartiers populaires. Le cas de Saint-Denis
Abstract
In the last years, local retail has become a significant political issue for municipalities, that are increasingly seizing existing tools to intervene on the commercial fabric of their territory. This rise of local retail policies can be observed in several cities and different types of neighborhoods, including working-class neighborhoods such as in the former “red belt” of Paris, marked both by an increasing pauperization of their population, and the arrival of new social groups. Through fieldwork conducted in Saint-Denis, this paper proposes to analyze local retail as a way of understanding urban policies implemented in working-class neighborhoods. Recognizing the growing uniformity and decline in the quality of commercial supply, local retail policies have dramatically changed and intensified in the past years. They are part of more global urban strategies seeking to increase the attractiveness of Saint-Denis for companies and middle-class residents. However, while local actors insist on the necessity to meet the needs of a diversified population, they nevertheless take into account the “popular” identity of this municipality in the former red belt. In that sense, through their ambivalence, commercial policies in general reflect urban policies implemented in these territories, in particular housing policies, which are based on the same goals.
