Suburban residential developments: an international model of production?

This paper explores the production of suburban residential developments in the urban region of Paris at the turn of the 1990-2000's, with a special focus on residential enclaves. In France, the influence of the US models (i.e. New Urbanism) on contemporary processes of suburban privatization and enclosure has been widely discussed by the academics and by the media. Comments on this trend often focus on increased social or racial segregation, as a threat against a largely mythic "European urban model" based upon social mixity and inner-city open public and civic spaces. Globalization and global firms would explain the rise of such pattern. This paper analyzes the existence of a global and standardised model of suburban residential developments, and it aims at getting a better understanding of its diffusion process. Using a geodatabase that characterizes all new suburban residential schemes planned in "Ile-de-France" between 2002 and 2007, this research aims at discussing: - the suburban residential programs (morphological characteristics, spatial contexts, leisure facilities, residents' social level, ...). Does a specific type of international suburban residential programs produced by international developers really exist? - the interaction between the actors involved in the suburban residential developments, examining especially the strategies of the international developers (like Kaufman and Broad, Nexity, Bouygues, Bouwfonds International, ...) and their negotiations and partnerships with local and public authorities