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24.04.2020

MOOC: 'Searching for the Grand Paris'

Update 17 April 2020: Population density, the inequality of circumstances in quarantine, the exodus of Parisians to the countryside, hospital coordination and the postponing of the municipal elections… While the Covid-19 crisis creates unprecedented questions for cities, the MOOC “Searching for the Grand Paris” is back on Coursera, and is an excellent opportunity to immerse yourself in a project of radical urban transformation with Patrick Le Galès. Ideas aren’t under lockdown! #KeepLearning

[To view this teaser with English subtitles, click on the "CC" button on the bottom right of the video, then click "English."]

Why create a “Grand Paris”? And for whom? Will uniting Paris and her surroundings in a huge metropolis create a new order for the French capital? These are the questions addressed in the online course (MOOC) “Searching for the Grand Paris”, created by the Sciences Po Urban School in partnership with the Paris City Hall and the agency Grand Public. Interview with Patrick Le Galès, the Dean of the Urban School, when the first session of the course was published in October 2017.

Why did the Sciences Po Urban School decide to create a MOOC dedicated to the subject of the future “Grand Paris”? 

Because the idea of the “Grand Paris” - creating a metropolis that unites the city of Paris and the wider Île-de-France region - is probably the most important urban transformation scheme that is currently underway in Europe! It’s not just about the creation of a metropolis with 7 million inhabitants; it’s also the implementation of an innovative, large-scale transport system, the “Grand Paris Express”, as well as developments in preparation for hosting the Olympic Games in 2024. The implications are important for millions of people. A family living in Bagnolet, a nearby suburb of Paris, told me that it was a huge change for them to go from “zone 93” to the Grand Paris! If these urban transformations are accepted, it will mean the most major and the most radical change since the developments by Baron Haussmann in the 19th Century.

The MOOC is free and open to all, and there are no prerequisites. What are the course objectives?

We wanted to make a MOOC that was accessible to the general public and that could also serve as a training module for the Paris Municipality. Through exchanges with our partners at the City Hall and with our colleagues at the Urban School, we realised that we wanted to contribute in some way to a sort of public education on the subject. This idea became a MOOC that is much more visual than the traditional university MOOC: it involves lots of videos, draws from the archives of the Institut national de l’audiovisuel (INA), etc. It also doesn’t really revolve around classroom-style teaching so much as the collection of ideas and experiences from residents of the Île-de-France region, leaders of organisations and researchers from different universities in the region. We have also brought in historians and international colleagues to provide historical and comparative perspectives. Our objective with this MOOC is to show what social sciences can contribute to citizens’ education and to city life. This is also, on a more global scale, the mission of Sciences Po. In this way, the Urban School brings together contributions from academic institutions and city planning agents to produce this free and accessible resource.

The MOOC is called “Looking for the Grand Paris”: what, in your opinion, does this future metropolis look like?

We address several controversies such as, for instance, the subject of “school mapping”, population control and the interest of a huge transport project, but the idea of the MOOC is not to take part in these; we decided to focus more on the questions of transport, culture and education, economic development, danger, safety, inequality, housing, etc. In the second class, entitled “Settlement”, for instance, we look at who the inhabitants of the Grand Paris are, and what’s happening in terms of social and ethnic segregation... We also recall the history of arrivals of migrants and of French people from all regions. Will housing development projects marginalise and isolate working classes or lead to improved social integration and mobility? The power of this MOOC lies in aligning issues that people do not necessarily tend to think of connecting but which are interconnected, and thus envisaging transformations, both in the actions of citizens and in public policy.

Students of the Urban School have played an active role in the creation of this MOOC; what have they contributed? What are the pedagogical aims?

Five students have been working closely on the projects throughout, since we decided on the subject matter. They created the sessions, and they put together the video for the interviews with the experts and part of the documentary work. It is really interesting, from a pedagogical point of view, to work on a project like this from A to Z, with all of the elements that this involves: compliance with deadlines, coordination, and so on… But it’s been equally educational for them to speak with members of different populations and to hear how they all envisage this “Grand Paris”. It forces them to think this project through, far beyond their own daily lives as students. This is what we try to teach our Urban School students here at Sciences Po: how to listen and to take into account different points of view when working on urban projects. This year, as part of their double Master’s in Urban and Territorial Planning - Urban Policy, in partnership with the London School of Economics (LSE), they will be able to compare their work with London! 

The MOOC “Searching for the Grand Paris” was created at Sciences Po by Patrick Le Galès, Maxime Crépel, and five students of the Sciences Po Urban School: Ninon Beillard, Juliette Guichardet, Judith Lienhard, Valentine Quinio and Téloise Thibault, with Fréderic Gilli, head of the agency Grand Public and Affiliated Professor at the Urban School, and Odile Gaultier-Voituriez. The course has been published and financed in partnership with the Mayor of Paris, and is available on the platforms Coursera (ENG, FR) and FUN (FR).

Article originally published on 17/10/2017.

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