Books & ideas

The Urban Condition of Muslims in India

Jules Naudet — 2025-09-12T09:03:01Z

According to Thomas Blom Hansen, Indian cities have become spaces of exclusion, fear, and sharpened enmity. He describes how Muslims are victims of an entanglement of communal violence, state complicity, and systemic discrimination.

The value of land

Jacques Thisse — 2024-07-04T09:27:05Z

Developed land is a major but neglected share of property holdings. In a new book, Alain Trannoy and Etienne Wasmer analyze this form of property, identifying its causes in ways that will generate discussion about its distribution—and possible taxation.

The Decomposed Passerby

Clément Rivière — 2024-04-04T08:03:00Z

Carole Gayet-Viaud's ethnographic study shows that city dwellers are far from always indifferent to their public environment. They sometimes interact with it, either by giving to beggars, getting into disputes, engaging in pure sociability, or perpetuating (but also combating) discrimination.

Urban Countrysides

Matthieu Calame — 2024-02-20T06:30:00Z

The renaturation of cities offers several advantages in terms of healthcare, urban planning and economics. But urban gardens can also become a Trojan horse for gentrification. Is cultivating them really all that counter-cultural?

The Wolves Entered Paris

Matthieu Calame — 2023-05-18T07:30:00Z

Hundreds of species have adapted to modern conurbations. What drives animals to go and live in the city? Beyond the accelerated degradation of nature, we need to rethink the very notion of wildness, and invent an “ethics of asymmetrical relations”.

Leaving the Car Behind

Étienne Augris — 2023-02-21T08:00:00Z

How might societies move beyond car dependency? Dishabituation from cars will require promoting new modes of transport (bikes, trains, busses) and a “mobility license” offering increased flexibility

Delhi, a Bourgeois City

Marie-Hélène Zérah — 2021-05-31T07:00:00Z

Efforts to make Delhi a “global” city have gone hand in hand with the destruction of nature and the commons, as well as the relegation of the poor to the periphery. The development of this metropolis attests to the urgency to reconcile ecological justice and social justice.

Life and Survival in Wuhan

Simeng Wang — 2020-12-28T08:00:00Z

This article presents a portrait of the city of Wuhan, which has been at the center of the news since the appearance of Covid-19, and discusses the experience of lockdown as recounted by its ordinary inhabitants, mixing suffering, despair, indignation and spirit of solidarity.

Automotive Society

Étienne Augris — 2019-12-19T08:00:00Z

Cars are everywhere. Motorisation owes its success to a product that satisfies individual aspirations, combined with the consumption boom and the appetite for urban transport. But do cars put us on the road to emancipation or alienation?

Algorithms and Territorial Regulation

Dominique Cardon & Maxime Crépel — 2019-12-16T07:00:00Z

Uber, Waze, Airbnb… The algorithms that control these platforms are based on an optimisation of the service provided to the user rather than any collective, political or moral norms. The accusations against these algorithms expose the way technical architectures implicitly govern our lives.