Social Solidary Economy and the real estate issue
Actors, processes and tensions in the production of affordable (business) premises in French metropolises
Fanny COTTET will present her doctoral thesis in urban planning and development, entitled: “Social Solidary Economy and the real estate issue: actors, processes and tensions in the production of affordable (business) premises in French metropolises” on
December 19, 2024
14h
Tiers-lieu Césure L’impasse” room
13 rue Santeuil
in the 5th arrondissement of Paris.
This thesis was prepared at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, the École Doctorale de Géographie de Paris (ED434) and the Géographie-cités laboratory (UMR 8504), under the supervision of Natacha Aveline-Dubach, Director of Research at the CNRS, and Juliette Maulat, Senior Lecturer at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
Le lieu culturel Mains d’Oeuvres à Saint Ouen, Paris © F. Cottet
Jury
– Joël Idt, Professor, Université Gustave Eiffel, Lab’URBA – Rapporteur
– Sandra Mallet, Professor, Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, Habiter – Rapporteur
– Olivier Crevoisier, Professor, University of Neuchâtel – Examiner
– Renaud Le Goix, Professor, Université Paris Cité, UMR Géographie-cités – Examiner
– Simon Laisney, Managing Director, Coopérative Plateau Urbain – Examiner
– Natacha Aveline-Dubach, CNRS Research Director, UMR Géographie-cités – Director
– Juliette Maulat, Associate Professor, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, UMR Géographie-cités -Director
Abstract
The current surge in metropolitan real estate prices has led the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) stakeholders to face increasing difficulties in durably accessing affordable real estate. In this context, the present doctoral thesis examines the requisites for the supply of business and office premises to these activities — which are characterized by high added social value, but low added economic value. It builds on a political economy approach and analyzes the processes at work in the Paris, Lyon and Lille metropolises, using a methodological protocol that combines long-lasting participant observation within a solidarity landlord (one of several such emerging entities in French metropolises — both similar to Community Land Trusts and quite singular in their purpose, economic model and behavior), a documentary corpus and an array of interviews — with managers of third places, SSE stakeholders, local government officials, planners and developers, solidarity landlords, and investors.
This thesis therefore sheds light on the models, tools, practices and real estate schemes that SSE stakeholders mobilize in order to produce affordable premises ; it also takes into account the related public policies. The available premises may be street-level retail premises, handicraft facilities or shared offices. They may be part of multi-purpose spaces, open to visitors, and their proponents sometimes regard them as third places. The present thesis shows how SSE stakeholders contrive to offer affordable and solidary business and office premises. These places are most often managed collectively, and they may even claim to belong to the urban commons, in an attempt to get away from the urban real estate market. In doing so, SSE stakeholders contribute to the agenda-setting of this particular issue — their access to affordable real estate — as a matter of public policy, and to the implementation of new instruments of public action at the national and metropolitan levels. Beyond the differing role of public stakeholders in the production of real estate solutions for the SSE in the aforementioned three metropolises, this thesis also documents the emergence of new real estate stakeholders : solidarity landlords, whose purpose is the purchase and the long-term management of a variety of affordable real estate solutions for SSE stakeholders.
The analysis shows the diversity of the solidarity landlords’ real estate and financial schemes, socio-economic models, and practices. It further shows that although these solidarity landlords aim at the supply of suitable premises and the production of affordable rent, on account of their funding channels they are subject to processes of discreet financialization. The growing weight of stakeholders, norms, practices and tools stemming from real estate finance in the practices of the solidarity landlords has a nontrivial effect on their projects. This thesis thus brings out the underlying tensions inherent to the production of affordable real estate solutions for the SSE in French metropolises, and thereby—focusing on a specific object—contributes to ongoing debates within urban research about the mechanisms of urban production, the processes of financialization, and the difficult construction of alternatives to the market.
