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Categorizing Neighborhoods: The Invention of ‘Sensitive Areas’ in France and ‘Historic Districts’ in the United States
Author(s) -
Tissot Sylvie
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
international journal of urban and regional research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.456
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1468-2427
pISSN - 0309-1317
DOI - 10.1111/1468-2427.12530
Subject(s) - reflexivity , real estate , urban theory , materiality (auditing) , politics , sociology , urban studies , gentrification , value (mathematics) , contentious politics , collective action , political economy , economic geography , political science , economy , social science , economic growth , social movement , law , aesthetics , economics , philosophy , civil engineering , machine learning , computer science , engineering
This essay offers a reflexive return to two research projects to demonstrate the value of Bourdieu's emphasis on the symbolic for the analysis of contemporary urban transformation. Bourdieu's insistence that we track the social genesis and diffusion of spatial categories of thought and action directs us to the empirical study of the struggles between agents and organizations that promote and/or oppose these categories, as well as the political, economic and other interests animating the agents. A retracing of the parallel invention of the ‘at‐risk neighborhood’ ( quartier sensible ) coined for and targeted by French urban policy since the late 1980s and the emergence of ‘historic’ or ‘diverse’ neighborhoods touted by gentrifying residents, cultural organizations and real estate agents in the United States since the 1960s challenges misleading oppositions between materiality and representations that often underpin and cramp urban research.