Space, Governmentality, and the Geographies of French Urban Policy ★

Abstract

This article seeks to make a contribution to debates around governmentality and urban policy. The main argument is that although there is a governmental dimension to the constitution of spaces through urban policy, there is no inherent politics to such constitutions. Different ways of imagining space have different implications for the constitution of problems and formulation of solutions.This argument is substantiated by an account of French urban policy ( la politique de la Ville) between 1981 and 2005, organized around three periods. The first part of the article relates this policy to the contemporary transformations of the French state, and points to the relationship between urban policy and the penal state.The second part presents an account of this policy with a focus on the changing conceptualizations of space, and their varying policy and political implications.

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