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The Zone

An Alternative History of Paris

Author Justinien Tribillon
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Hardcover
$29.95 US
Verso Books | Verso
5.83"W x 8.57"H x 0.69"D   | 10 oz | 20 per carton
On sale Jul 09, 2024 | 208 Pages | 9781804294048
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AN OUTSIDER’S GUIDE TO MODERN PARIS

In The Zone, Justinien Tribillon takes the reader on a tour of an eponymous Parisian hinterland. The site of dreams and nightmares, from Van Gogh’s paintings to the cinematic  violence of La Haine, the Zone, so often misun- derstood, is the key to understanding today’s  Paris, and even France itself.

Originally the site of defensive walls, alongside which mushroomed makeshift housing, allotments, and dancehalls in the nineteenth century, the Zone has performed many functions and been a place of contention for  two centuries. Dismantled in the 1920s, the fortifications were first replaced with gardens, stadia and homes. After the war came the Boulevard Périphérique, a ring road promising seamless travel in a futuristic car-centric Paris. With the ring road came new dreams of modernity in reinvented suburbs: new towns, high-rise architecture and social housing built at record speed. Yesterday’s Paris made way for tomorrow’s banlieue.

But the metropolitan dream was never realised. The Zone became a symbol of division: between inner and outer cities; between the bourgeois centre and the working-class immigrant outskirts; between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The Zone, both a physical space and a powerful myth, came to crystallise the social, spatial and ethno-racial differences between Paris and the banlieue.

The Zone is a brilliant anatomy of the true heart of Paris. An essential book for urbanists and historians.
"Shows how to read the recent history of Paris from its edge towards its center. How do the complicated conditions in the banlieue shape life for the Paris of tourists, monuments and bourgeois amenities? This book is innovative in its methods and absorbing in its analysis. More than this, Justinien Tribillon has worked out a way to understand other cities from the outside in"
—RICHARD SENNETT author of The Performer

"An indispensable guide to the real Paris, The Zone offers a succinct but comprehensive urban and social history laying bare the politics of class, race and planning that have shaped the impoverished environment and marginalised communities of the capital’s banlieue."
—JOHN BOUGHTON author of Municipal Dreams

"This captivating book admirably challenges the constructed myths about Paris and the banlieue. It dismantles the fabricated oppositions between the two by scrutinizing the spaces, politics and voices of the Zone. The book is a remarkable examination and a groundbreaking critique of "the most unknown yet quintessentially Parisian space""
—SAMIA HENNI author of Architecture of Counterrevolution

"Fascinating ... it is by pushing us to think about the cultural biases and politics of urban infrastructure that The Zone hits its mark."
—Stephen W. Sawyer, Times Literary Supplement

"[A] searing account of life in the interstices of the capital for the working class and North African immigrants from the mid-19th century to the present day."
—Lauren Elkin

"A compelling history of the city’s margins, exploring its politics and policies, revealing its illusions."
—Aaron Peck, Frieze
Justinien Tribillon is an urbanist, writer and editor. He co-founded, edited and published Migrant Journal (2016–2019), and Visible upon breakdown: Exploring the cultural, political and spatial nature of infrastructure (2024, Spector Books). He has also contributed to Flaneur, The Architectural Review, The Guardian, MONU, and Magnum among others. He gained his PhD in urban studies at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. In 2023–2024, he is a fellow at Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome.
Justinien Tribillon View titles by Justinien Tribillon
Introduction

1. Black Belt: Creating an Edge
2. Green Belt: Greenwashing, Whitewashing
3. Pink Belt, Red Belt: Working-Class Banlieue and the Fear of the Revolution
4. Dirt Belt: Technocracy at Work in Paris
5. Rust Belt, White City: Colonial Paris and the Margins of the Empire
Conclusion

Acknowledgements
Notes

About

AN OUTSIDER’S GUIDE TO MODERN PARIS

In The Zone, Justinien Tribillon takes the reader on a tour of an eponymous Parisian hinterland. The site of dreams and nightmares, from Van Gogh’s paintings to the cinematic  violence of La Haine, the Zone, so often misun- derstood, is the key to understanding today’s  Paris, and even France itself.

Originally the site of defensive walls, alongside which mushroomed makeshift housing, allotments, and dancehalls in the nineteenth century, the Zone has performed many functions and been a place of contention for  two centuries. Dismantled in the 1920s, the fortifications were first replaced with gardens, stadia and homes. After the war came the Boulevard Périphérique, a ring road promising seamless travel in a futuristic car-centric Paris. With the ring road came new dreams of modernity in reinvented suburbs: new towns, high-rise architecture and social housing built at record speed. Yesterday’s Paris made way for tomorrow’s banlieue.

But the metropolitan dream was never realised. The Zone became a symbol of division: between inner and outer cities; between the bourgeois centre and the working-class immigrant outskirts; between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The Zone, both a physical space and a powerful myth, came to crystallise the social, spatial and ethno-racial differences between Paris and the banlieue.

The Zone is a brilliant anatomy of the true heart of Paris. An essential book for urbanists and historians.

Praise

"Shows how to read the recent history of Paris from its edge towards its center. How do the complicated conditions in the banlieue shape life for the Paris of tourists, monuments and bourgeois amenities? This book is innovative in its methods and absorbing in its analysis. More than this, Justinien Tribillon has worked out a way to understand other cities from the outside in"
—RICHARD SENNETT author of The Performer

"An indispensable guide to the real Paris, The Zone offers a succinct but comprehensive urban and social history laying bare the politics of class, race and planning that have shaped the impoverished environment and marginalised communities of the capital’s banlieue."
—JOHN BOUGHTON author of Municipal Dreams

"This captivating book admirably challenges the constructed myths about Paris and the banlieue. It dismantles the fabricated oppositions between the two by scrutinizing the spaces, politics and voices of the Zone. The book is a remarkable examination and a groundbreaking critique of "the most unknown yet quintessentially Parisian space""
—SAMIA HENNI author of Architecture of Counterrevolution

"Fascinating ... it is by pushing us to think about the cultural biases and politics of urban infrastructure that The Zone hits its mark."
—Stephen W. Sawyer, Times Literary Supplement

"[A] searing account of life in the interstices of the capital for the working class and North African immigrants from the mid-19th century to the present day."
—Lauren Elkin

"A compelling history of the city’s margins, exploring its politics and policies, revealing its illusions."
—Aaron Peck, Frieze

Author

Justinien Tribillon is an urbanist, writer and editor. He co-founded, edited and published Migrant Journal (2016–2019), and Visible upon breakdown: Exploring the cultural, political and spatial nature of infrastructure (2024, Spector Books). He has also contributed to Flaneur, The Architectural Review, The Guardian, MONU, and Magnum among others. He gained his PhD in urban studies at the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London. In 2023–2024, he is a fellow at Villa Medici, the French Academy in Rome.
Justinien Tribillon View titles by Justinien Tribillon

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Black Belt: Creating an Edge
2. Green Belt: Greenwashing, Whitewashing
3. Pink Belt, Red Belt: Working-Class Banlieue and the Fear of the Revolution
4. Dirt Belt: Technocracy at Work in Paris
5. Rust Belt, White City: Colonial Paris and the Margins of the Empire
Conclusion

Acknowledgements
Notes

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