{"id":3371,"date":"2017-10-12T12:30:46","date_gmt":"2017-10-12T10:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cogito\/home\/?p=3371"},"modified":"2017-10-13T10:11:06","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T08:11:06","slug":"divided-cities-between-fragmentation-and-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sciencespo.fr\/research\/cogito\/home\/divided-cities-between-fragmentation-and-integration\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Divided cities: between fragmentation and integration"},"content":{"rendered":"

A research professor in the fields of urbanism and urban policies affiliated with Sciences Po\u2019s Centre for European Studies, Marco Cremaschi<\/a> has taught at several universities in France and abroad. He analyzes urban change and urbanity, and its attendant pervasive myths of mixing and diversity. Drawing on the examples of Rome, Buenos Aires and Calcutta, he highlights the divergence between the two main directions that current urban development has taken: fragmentation and integration.
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Buenos Aires slum by Buenos Aires Photographer. CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

M<\/span>\nodernity \u2013 and particularly the division of labor and public transportation \u2013 has reshaped cities, leading to a massive dilution of relations of proximity and a weakening of local ties. However, pockets of proximity are resisting, reinforcing local solidarity in an almost citizen-centered way in working class neighborhoods.<\/p>\n

These can be found in Rome\u2019s borgate<\/i>, the villas miseria<\/i> of Buenos Aires and the bustees<\/i> slums in the middle of Calcutta, where residences and workplaces (frequently informal) remain in close proximity, given that their rationalization and separation remain incomplete. These cities face a dilemma. They could pursue a more proactive development and more radical rationalization, which risks not being implemented; or they could embrace an \u201curbanism\u201d that integrates the various dimensions of daily life. Of course, urbanism actually encompasses housing, mobility and urban security policies. The latter\u2019s weakness continue to generate conflicts that have marked the social and political history of these three cities.<\/p>\n

Two models of urban development<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Rome,

Rome, quartier Pigneto by Emiliano Felicissimo,CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p><\/div>\n

Two ways of understanding urbanism succeeded each other: one radical, modernizing and sometimes violent way based on authoritarian zoning practices allowing governments to drive out the poor and group the rich; and a progressive, social and participative way promoting an effort to rebuild social ties. Both models have left intertwined and contradictory traces in working class neighborhoods and in more recent actions. Three types of traces are apparent:<\/p>\n