Marie Mondain will present her thesis in urban planning entitled: “Low-cost housing organizations facing urban decline”
on December 14 at 9:30 a.m.
in the auditorium of the large documentary equipment
Condorcet Campus
10 cours des Humanités, 93322 Aubervilliers
If you wish to participate (on site or by videoconference), please register by following this link:
https://framaforms.org/soutenance-de-these-marie-mondain-1637834039
Composition of the jury
Bruno Daly, director of heritage studies, Fédération des offices publics de l’habitat, examiner
Jean-Claude Driant, University Professor, Université Paris-Est-Créteil, examiner
Sylvie Fol, university professor, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, director, member of Géographie-cités
Yoan Miot, lecturer, Université Gustave Eiffel, director
Julie Pollard, professor, University of Lausanne, rapporteur
Hélène Roth, Associate Professor, Blaise Pascal University, Clermont-Auvergne, examiner
Valérie Sala Pala, University Professor, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, rapporteur
Summary of the thesis
Since the late 2000s, many social housing organizations located outside metropolitan areas have been experiencing increasing challenges (increase in the number of vacant units, uncertainty about new residential construction, decrease in revenues, etc.). Concurrently, the National Federations of Social Housing Organizations (NFSHO) has emphasized the central role of its member organizations in these same territories in supporting local governments, also facing urban challenges such as housing vacancy, property prices decrease and population decline.
This apparent paradox serves as a guiding thread for this thesis. The notion of urban shrinkage, envisioned as a local process of demographic, economic and social decline of cities, serves to illustrate the systemic character of the challenges faced by social housing companies. It also serves to highlight the way in which social housing organizations contribute to urban policies in these particular contexts. Three aspects of the social housing organisations’ activities have been examined: the repositioning of social housing in real estate markets affected by depreciation, the resetting of housing policies’ stakes in contexts of urban shrinkage, and the mismatch with sectoral social housing policies and their recent evolutions.
For this purpose, a survey has been carried out on a double level. On a national scale, I have traced back the NFSHO’s efforts to integrate urban shrinkage issues into housing policies during the 1980s and the last decade of the 2000s. At the local level, I have selected five cities (Le Havre, Alençon, Flers, Argentan and L’Aigle) in order to observe the evolution of social housing organizations’ activities in contexts of urban shrinkage as well as their contribution to urban policies.
