Context 162 - November 2019

18 C O N T E X T 1 6 2 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 9 issues touching on social relations, governance, housing, heritage, the role of the state and even transport, this programme helped to extend the pioneering work conducted in the 1980s by the Institut d’histoire du temps présent (Institute of Present History, IHTP, French National Centre for Scientific Research).2 This work led to all the participants putting the new towns period into perspective. Between 1965 (when the SDAURP master plan was published) and the start of the 2000s (when the public planning bodies and master planning tools put in place by the state in each of the new towns closed), new urban centres witnessed a massive influx of families, assets and businesses, allowing an urban reality to develop.They implemented a clear vision for the town based, in particular, on urban sprawl, the presence of large green-and- blue spaces, the construction of cultural and sporting facilities, or even welcoming cars as a central element of urban living. Urban narratives Going beyond these themes, one of the major achievements of the PHEVN programme will have been its consideration of the influence of town narratives. Rightly so: throughout their construction, new towns were presented by their makers in an eminently modernist light. From the outset, the town planners in public planning bodies stressed that they were build- ing new towns as alternatives to large housing developments. According to these planners, the new urban centres were the very antithesis of the urban developments built by the Ministry of Reconstruction and Town Planning in the 1950s.The director of the Cergy-Pontoise study, Bernard Hirsch, wrote: ‘Our aim is to make a new town and not a priority urban development area (ZUP) or a large housing development, even if they would be of good quality’3. He is not alone in this opinion. Following numerous sociologists at the time, specialists in public planning bodies defended the idea that large housing developments and new towns would fall under two different town planning models. Large housing developments, being dormitory towns deprived of functional diversity and experiencing social problems, stood in contrast to the new towns, which were fully integrated into the metropolitan areas on which they were dependent; harmoniously welcomed assets and businesses; were served by public transport; and offered a global cultural and environmental milieu.This vision needs to be nuanced, as several urban historians in France have shown. The current context Is history in the process of repeating itself? Having been set up as urban models, new towns are now at best ignored and at worst decried by town planners. The conceptual context has changed significantly in the past 20 years or so. Two major concepts that prevailed in the construction of new urban centres have been particularly placed at risk by this renewal of urban theory: urban sprawl, on the one hand, and the motor industry, on the other. The new town of Saint-Quentin-en- Yvelines (Photo: Stephan Joubert, SQY) References 2 Voldman, Danièle (ed) (1989), ‘Les origines des villes nouvelles de la région parisienne’, Les Cahiers de l’IHTP, No 12, Paris, CNRS, April 3 Hirsch, Bernard (2000) Oublier Cergy: l’invention d’une ville nouvelle. Cergy-Pontoise, 1965–1975 , Presses de l’Ecole nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, 2000 (1st edition, 1990) Opposite: Perspective, an artwork by Marta Pan in Saint-Quentin- en-Yvelines (Photo: Daniel Huchon, SQY City Museum)