Article Dans Une Revue Méditerranée : revue géographique des pays méditerranéens Année : 2016

Segregation in the cities of the European Mediterranean

Résumé

Studies of urban segregation have proliferated since the 1990s, spurred by debate on the impact of globalization on the socio-spatial structure of cities. Located on a major global dividing line demarcating North from South, Mediterranean cities have led this debate. Indeed, as early as 1990, the Greek geographer Lila Leontidou posited the existence of a Mediterranean ‘resistance’ to the socio-spatial transformations of the post-Fordist city. She argued that late industrialization, heavy reliance on informal channels in housing acquisition, the importance of familial residential proximity, and weak functional zoning all factor into limiting social segregation in the Mediterranean. Mediterranean cities would thus provide a hybrid model, between ‘North’ and ‘South’ (LEONTIDOU, 1990, 1996). Unfortunately this theory has long lacked empirical validation and has even reinforced long standing myths about Mediterranean cities by reviving their image as cosmopolitan, ‘porous’ cities (BENJAMIN, 1924). This special issue of Méditerranée is in the continuity of this research. It deals with residential segregation, but focuses on the segregative dynamics found in practices occurring in public spaces (see articles by Nick Dines, Matthieu Giroud, Sarah Baudry and Magda Bolzoni). It also emphasizes the discourses and representations that underlie, accompany and sometimes justify urban segregation (see articles by Nick Dines, Bruno Cousin, Francesca Governa and Sabira Kakouch), aware of the fact that in the Mediterranean, perhaps even more than elsewhere, contemporary segregative dynamics are often muddled by the political instrumentalization of unitary myths.

Dates et versions

hal-04503042 , version 1 (13-03-2024)

Identifiants

Citer

Thomas Pfirsch, Giovanni Semi. Segregation in the cities of the European Mediterranean. Méditerranée : revue géographique des pays méditerranéens, 2016, 127, pp.15-23. ⟨10.4000/mediterranee.8376⟩. ⟨hal-04503042⟩
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