In July 2026, Coline Chardon published a paper on overcoming demolition-centred urban development, using the Villeneuve neighbourhood in Grenoble as a case study. The paper analyses the market-driven rationales underpinning contemporary French urban renewal and addresses potential ways to rethink renewal that go beyond expansive demolition and new construction.
Despite the mounting multiple crises in the social and ecological domains, the demolition of ageing housing remains a standard practice of urban renewal politics, even though it directly contradicts the imperatives of affordable housing and European rehabilitation goals. The demolition of large social housing units from the post-war period, such as the French grands ensembles, has been carried out systematically over the last few decades and still follows strong path dependencies. There are several interlinked reasons for this:
- Demolitions are coupled with a persistent belief in the benefits of social mix, purportedly improving the socio-economic situation of a neighbourhood. This is to be achieved through the replacement of social housing units with more residential or individual dwellings, a mechanism rooted in the (racial) stigmatisation of the populations living in these areas.
- The achievement of a higher social mix rate aligns with the interests of private investors. Because construction remains a prime investment field, demolition, often paired with other interventions such as spatial densification, serves to create rental gaps and maximise land value – not necessarily resident’s well-being.
- In France, demolitions have been institutionalised through decades of national urban renewal programmes. Significant financial incentives have been created in favour of demolition and reconstruction over refurbishment, especially for social landlords (at one point, up to 90% of demolitions were financed by the state!). In some cases, landlords even reduced maintenance and limited new tenancies while awaiting state support to demolish their properties
What can be done to oppose this destructive logic?
In the Villeneuve district of Grenoble, the threat of demolition has always loomed. Built in the late 1960s under a socialist mayor, the district with more than 4,000 units is emblematic of the utopian modernist planning of that time. Beginning in 2003, the neighbourhood’s renovation has undergone several renewal projects, and works are currently still underway.
Although some demolitions did take place in the district, their scale was far smaller than initially planned. Why was this the case? A combination of long-standing grassroots mobilisation and institutional efforts to prioritise rehabilitation helped achieve this outcome. Residents and local activists organised several campaigns, produced counter-expertise, and created autonomous spaces for democratic participation. Meanwhile, newly elected local authorities strategically defended refurbishment within the technocratic framework of the national agency for urban renewal.
However, while political change and local protests enabled a partial shift away from demolition, structural dependencies – financial, institutional and ideological – continue to constrain alternatives. The paper argues that moving beyond demolition-centred renewal requires a reform of national funding and evaluation frameworks, enabling practices of repair, reuse and democratic co-production. Such an approach would not only mitigate environmental and social costs but also contribute to reframing urban renewal within a post-growth paradigm beyond demolition.
You can find the publication here.
For further activists’ voices from Grenoble, see the interview with David Bodinier – association member of “Next Planning” – on community organizing and advocacy planning methods implemented in Villeneuve, published in Común-Magazin (in German only):
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