Paris is burning: the concentration of poverty

The riots in France continued last night, albeit at lower intensity than the night before. They appear to be spreading, metastasizing beyond Paris to dozens of French cities, and now have sparked a few events outside France. There have been millions of bytes of text written about the riots already, by many people far more knowledgeable about the situation in France than I. If I can offer anything new to the discussion, it’s just to point out the similarities between the French riots and the riots by African-Americans in the late 1960s in the United States. In both cases, there is a poor class with high unemployment, particularly among the youth. In France, as in the United States, the first response to the riots by the government and the press (beyond anger at the rioters) was discussion about how horrible those economic conditions were, and some token redevelopment projects in the slums were proposed to try to rectify the economic disparity. It’s good to remember, however, that poverty alone does not breed riots. In France today, note that it isn’t first generation immigrants who are rioting, but second or third-generation immigrants, who are generally a little better off. Similarly, in the United States the large barrios of Hispanic immigrants have historically not had problems with riots (with the possible exception of the Zoot Suit Riots), while many of the African-American communities that have been poor for generations seem just as likely to have a riot today as in 1992 (the last major riot in Los Angeles).

A riot requires not just poverty but a prevailing sense of injustice among a people, whether from police abuse or from job discrimination (as in both France and the US). This sense of not really belonging to a society, and not really having any say in the political process, is just as important to the formation of a riot as the economic component. It is, unfortunately, much more difficult to change, which is why governments tend to respond to riots by just addressing the economic component and ignore the issue of racism.

There’s another important lesson that came out of the 1960s U.S. riots and is now apparent in the French riots: the failure of modern urban planning. The French made a decision to construct large affordable housing projects out in the Paris suburbs, and did it the cheapest possible way, using tall skyscrapers that I’ve heard referred to in French as “bunny cages”, to describe how cramped and ugly they are. Similarly, the U.S. constructed large skyscrapers in huge projects in urban areas in Chicago and New York. These projects are now widely recognized as failures. The concentration of poverty, whether by affordable housing projects or more subtle techniques like zoning, multiplied the problems caused by poverty many times over. While newer housing projects in the U.S. and France recognize this and are generally more dispersed across a region, the old projects mostly persist as a blight on the landscape. There’s a real need for a wholesale dismantling of these projects, either physically (by demolition) or socially (by redeveloping portions of the projects). This won’t happen overnight- it took 20 years to build the “bunny cages”, and it will take at least that long to construct an equal number of affordable housing units in more dispersed settlements.

The reason this is so important is that cultural assimilation of poor groups into the broader society, the stated goal of both the French and the U.S. governments, is impossible without physical proximity. Immigrant neighborhoods form naturally for first-generation immigrants, and are invaluable for survival in their new country. However, after the first generation, or in the case of native poor groups such as the African-American urban poor, government policy must enable the movement of people into the broader society. Currently, both U.S. and French policy aim, effectively, to isolate their poor from the broader society, with disastrous results.

via Hamlets Dreams

Comments

[thetrollinme]

"A riot requires not just poverty but a prevailing sense of injustice."

Is this some sort of parochial observation? My immediate response was, ahem, Bullshit. It might have been the case in the US, in the 60s, but today, riots are just riots, often involving 'youth', gangs, and opportunity. The political/economic analysis of yesteryear is not relevant, not applicable, despite economic and social injustice. You see, injustice is a one-way street, but what's been happening in the last couple of years is about entitlement: the boys are from solid backgrounds, but they feel the world is theirs, and if they don't get their way, weeell, they'll just have a major tantrum.

This is not about being hard done by, it's about violence as politics. It's about feeling entitled to have it your way, regardless of your rationale, your credibility, your position among many other groups of people with interests of their own. The equivalent of a lunchroom riot. Not a one-way street where the oppressors have been pushing you into a corner. This is a street of bourgeouis values, albeit not those of the mainstream.

"The violence, from what i have heard, was caused by a select group of young criminal thugs, who used the whole issue as an excuse to go on the rampage. Smashing up shops, setting fire to cars, threatening people with guns, having a good old stone throwing session at the cops when they arrived in their riot gear." http://bobsnew.blogspot.com

[alex]

I'm responding to the above comment by thetrollinme.

I haven't read in-depth about the incidents in Paris, but from what I know they were provoked by racist policing, rather than thugs. That explanation would fit with the 'sense of injustice' theory, and moreover it would fit with what I know about riots here in the USA. The last riot in my hometown, Minneapolis, happened two years ago after police officers shot a small boy. For many who reside in our local ghetto, this was the last straw, and I can't say I blame them. The riots now in Paris I believe were caused by a similar incident, when two boys were electrocuted while running from police. So it seems that blaming riots on a 'sense of injustice' may not be far from the truth. And what exactly do you mean by calling someone whose blog is titled 'urban cartography' parochial?

[thetrollinme]

Interesting use of 'provoked'. The police certainly have some racist attitudes, but this does not in itself provoke a riot - a la Rodney King. Stupid kids getting themselves electrocuted should be a call for grief and consolation, not an excuse for car-burning. Ergo, something else is at work here.

Perhaps we have to go back to the 60s again for a clearer model. Some of the summer riots in Detroit, Philly, New Jersey, etc were nominally based on specific incidents, but overall, the larger provocation was the restive mood among denizens. In this context, racist policing is what happened in Selma, and again, recently, in Gretna/New Orleans. Riots in Europe are not reducible to policing. They are symptomatic of other issues.

'what I know about riots here in the USA' is what I mean by parochial. It's about perspective gained from local experience, where one local is projected onto others. Parochial can be as small as a parish and as large as a nation. In this case, you're using the US as a model and projecting it onto France. If we're all the same everywhere, then that's okay. But I dare say that France is not a carbon copy of the US. French rioters are behaving badly for a different set of reasons - even though the situation can be profiled as identical. My point is that approach is outmoded, and that using a US model for thinking aboput European rioters is not helpful.

[Hamlets Dreams]

First of all, thanks to both of you for the comments. Even if they're critical, they're a joy to read.

Second, I hope it's clear that I didn't mean to imply that economic or racial injustice ever justifies a riot in a moral sense! The young men burning cars and schools in France are committing stupid, senseless acts. One can condemn peoples actions while still inquiring what kind of socioeconomic conditions might have contributed to people being willing to do such stupid, violent things.

Third, I think Thetrollinme in right that my comment was a little parochial, in that it *is* written from the perspective of an American writing on the French riots. That perspective is certainly limited compared to the complex reality of any other culture, but at least I'm being honest and explictly stating in the article that I'm writing from an American perspective! That's more than most columnists in the U.S. newspapers, who generally just write like their perspective is the objective truth. In any event, my wife is from North Africa, and moved to the U.S. via France (where I spend a lot of time travelling), and so from long conversations with her about this I have the sense that my piece isn't so American that's its totally foreign to the reality in France! The real test would be if someone who lives in the cités agrees...

[jesse]

This is about two weeks late, but I put a few of my thoughts on the subject on The Urban Commons: http://urbancommons.org/archives/2005/12/chaos_in_the_ba.html#more

And for the record, as someone who's spent all of his young life in a Cité, I do agree that riots aren't just about poverty but a prevailing sense of injustice. Frankly, I find thetrollinme's comments shocking. Not that part of of the reason behind the riots isn't opportunistic or thuggish, but equating that with a "tantrum" is to completely disregard the reality of French Society.