The hidden side of metropolization. Governing squats and slums in ...

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22 evaluation of the project is not so positive after 5 years. In April 2011, 59 people were still living in the village. 2 inhabitants got a stable job, 7 an unstable job. 4 families are involved into a professional training. Since July 2010 two families have been relocated in a stable house 23 . The managers of the project argue that “it is better than nothing”. The “village” instrument enables local authorities to control lands and populations. The urban project frame actors and public authorities are able to govern their behavior (Foucault) as well as they can reclaim land. Beyond the political willingness to provide welfare to poor people, this project could be interpreted following two hypotheses. The first is a blame avoidance strategy (Weaver, 1986): local officials want to legitimate the eviction of a slum and to avoid the blame from voters who usually protest against such practices. The second is a discipline strategy: in order to keep control on the territory with technical dispositive, local actors build statistics and provide minimum social services. We observed a differential government of illegalisms again in the sense that the selection process categorizes differently the same populations and normalizes some of them in order to evict the former. Conclusion To give a general perspective of the urban governance around squats and slums we could say that the State (National Government) evicts the illegal settlements and squats and also give funds to realize local projects. However, we do not observe a real public policy towards squats and slums implemented at the national scale. The local level seems more relevant in that field. I showed that many initiatives coming from the municipalities push officials and decision makers to implement specific urban policies and tools in order to normalize and control illegal occupations. The project and the contract are used as urban planners’ instruments in order to build a more sustainable city on a short-life place like squats or slums. On the one hand, squatting is limited in time and eviction is unavoidable. On the other hand, the main claim for policy makers is to build a sustainable city. Squatting seems to be a relevant transition between these two dimensions and the project could be the procedural link. The city council is in charge of controlling its territory but is not able to make use of all available spaces: vacant spaces persist in Ile-de-France (for instance, some as industrial waste land). The project and the precarious contracts are means to struggle against these vacant spaces by occupying them while waiting for a more sustainable project. Above all, these instruments are powerful tools of control over the population and lands. The ungovernable city becomes governable at certain moments, for certain populations and certain lands. Moreover, governing squats and slums aims at building public order in the city. Public order is built with four main vectors. The first is the ownership right: the Law has to enforce it. The second vector is the public health and security. Many problems emerged in these places and public actors have to provide welfare to the inhabitants. The third is the project. Governing a society or a city consists in developing project and building strategies to attract investments and increase the economic growth, to limit the urban expansion and build a sustainable city. Furthermore, it involves the provision of services and infrastructures for citizens. The fourth is the “nuisance”. Nobody can disturb the “normal” life of the city. As Pierre Favre suggested, “the Government governs, of course, but it does not govern everybody and all the time (…) the Governor governs only certain sectors of society and at certain times” (Favre, 2003). Thus, municipalities try to decrease the ungovernable interstices and to increase their political capacities by enlarging the territories that are normalized, framed by rules and on which an urban project assures the building of a sustainable metropolis. I propose to explore the urban governance by the bottom, by the negative. Understanding the government of the “margin” and the 23 ALJ 93, Avril 2011. Bilan MOUS Aubervilliers.
23 illegal city helps us to better understand the whole process of metropolization. The second main proposition of this paper is that a multilevel analysis can help explain the discrepancies between state and municipality policies. Cities play the role of the mediator between the local population and the central government, but more than that they are able to implement policies that challenge policies proposed at the centre. References ADELL R. et MARTÍNEZ M. (dir.). 2004. ¿Dónde están las llaves Prácticas y contextos sociales del movimiento okupa, Madrid, La Catarata. AGIER Michel, Aux bords du monde, les réfugiés, Paris, Flammarion, 2002. AGIER, Michel, Gérer les indésirables. Des camps de réfugiés au gouvernement humanitaire, Paris, Flammarion, 2008. AGUILERA T. 2010a. Gouverner l’illégal. Les politiques urbaines face aux squats à Paris [Governing the Illegal. Urban Policies towards Squats in Paris], Master’s final dissertation, Sciences Po, 167p. AGUILERA T. 2010b. « Réguler et policer les squats à Paris. Politiques publiques et construction de l’ordre », Working papers du Programme Villes & territoires, 2010-8, Paris, Sciences Po, http://blogs.sciences-po.fr/recherche-villes/files/2010/11/WP-Aguilera.pdf AGUILERA T. 2011a. “Innover par les instruments. Le cas du gouvernement des squats à Paris”, International Conference, « Les instruments d’action publique mis en discussion théorique », Sciences Po, 6-8 janvier 2011, http://blogs.sciences-po.fr/recherche-recompositionetat/files/2010/12/AGUILERA-Thomas-draft.pdf AGUILERA T. 2011b. « Struggling within illegality against housing crisis in Paris. Squats and Slums as a Challenge to Urban Policies », Working papers du ProgrammeVilles&territoires, 2011- 03, Paris, Sciences Po, http://blogs.sciences-po.fr/recherche-villes/files/2011/05/WP_Aguilera_2011- 03.pdf ALDRICH Brian C. and SANDHU Ranvinder S. (eds.), Housing the Urban Poor. Policy and Practice in Developing Countries, London, Zed Books, 1995. Asamblea de Okupas de Barcelona, Okupación, represión y movimientos sociales, Madrid, Diatriba y Traficantes de Sueños, 2000. ASSEO H. 1994. Les Tsiganes, une destinée européenne, Paris, Gallimard, 1994. ASSEO H. 2007. « L’invention des Nomades en Europe au XXe siècle et la nationalisation impossible des Tsiganes », dans Gérard NOIRIEL, (ed.), L’Identification des personnes, Genèse d’un travail d’Etat, paris, Belin coll. « Socio-histoires », chapitre 6, pp. 161-180. AZUELA, Antonio et DUHAU Emilio, “Tenure Regularization, Private Property and Public Order in Mexico”, in FERNANDES Edesio and VARLEY Ann (eds.), Illegal Cities. Law and Urban Change in Developing Countries, London, New York, Zed Books, 1998.p.156-171. BAILEY R. 1973. The Squatters, London, Penguin Books. BAUMGARTNER F.R. et JONES B.D. 2005. The Politics of Attention. How government prioritizes problems, Chicago, Chicago University Press. BERNARDOT M. 2008. Camps d’étrangers, Paris, Terra. BERNER, Erhard. 2000. “Poverty Allievation and the Eviction of the Poorest: Towards Urban Land Reform in the Philippines”, in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, vol.24, n°3, p.554-566. BERTHAUT J. 2008. Parisquat : des squats politiques à Paris, 1995-2000, Lyon, Atelier de création libertaire. BETANCUR J.1995. “Spontaneous Settlements in Columbia: From Opposition to Reluctant Acceptance to…Again Opposition”, in B. Aldrich and R. Sandhu (eds.) Housing the Urban Poor, pp. 97-111. London: Zed Books, p.185-223.
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