This essay was written by Lower Sixth Form student Haris MacNiol as an Independent Learning Assignment (ILA). It was shortlisted for the 2023 ILA/ ORIS award. The following provides a short introduction to the full essay:
Paris is a city firmly detached from its surroundings. Beyond its ring road lies a ‘not Paris’, a parallel universe which exists in limbo, beyond the administrative boundaries of the city but part of its conurbation. Far from the idyllic American suburbia, the reality of the French Banlieues (or suburbs) is one of vast concrete housing complexes (known as cités) hosting poverty, crime and racial inequality. Although forcefully removed from the Parisian sphere of influence, the cités exist as scars of the failed modernist utopia, Paris would like to forget. The architectural dogma of Le Corbusier paired with governmental constraints resulted in a built environment that failed and continues to fail to this day, the residents who find themselves in these beton-brut poverty traps. To examine the failings of the Banlieues, is to examine the lack of oversight that the architects and the government displayed in conjunction with inequalities that have persisted since the downfall of the banlieues some 50 years ago.
To view Haris’s full article, follow this link below:
The Unchained Library 