Two Tales of Mass Housing in Marseille - La Tourette and La Rouvière

In the previous post I have already pointed out that Marseille is somewhat different from other French cities when it comes to mass (social) housing. Through their spread of grands ensembles all over the city, ghettoization of the poor is limited which furthermore might be part of the reason why Marseille was not so much affected by uprisings and riots in recent years despite the cities diverse population structure.

As the second Marseille post I would like to juxtapose two typical housing situations of the city: One is the ensemble of La Tourette in immediate proximity of the Old Port in the city centre and La Rouvière on the city’s fringes of the southern mountains.

Marseille – An Integrative Model for Inner-City Social Housing?

Unlike other French cities, Marseille’s socio-spatial structure is distinctively different from a prevailing concentric centre-banlieue urban landscape with outwardly growing poverty, crime, and social segregation. Might this specific socio-spatial distribution be a model to diminish social tensions?

In the hometown of Corbusier’s famous first machine for living the geographical situation as the closest harbour for North-African immigration caused high demands in housing supplies. Therefore, and also as a consequence of vast bombings during WW II, numerous grands ensembles (housing estates) and housing blocks had to be erected in the city in the second half of the 20th century. As a result the whole cityscape is interspersed with huge concrete estates and tower blocks.