"Searching for the Grand Paris." -The Grand Paris concerns population density and therefore, housing density. The whole area is a concentration of people, a concentration of housing, which is relatively dense, as in Paris, or more spread out, such as in Los Angeles. The construction of housing can occur in many different ways. The building of houses by residents, in a formal, legal manner, is the dominant method in the large cities around the world, but not only in the South. For example, the shanty towns in some parts of the Parisian region or in refugee camps. Housing has, at times, been built by employers, by foundations, but more often than not, it is the result of governmental action, public or quasi-public organizations. In France, for example, ministries, local authorities, social housing schemes, or private developers. Housing policy aims to regulate, to govern, the actions of these different parties. The construction of housing concerns land planning, urban planning, following the guidelines, in order to facilitate and organize the construction of housing. This issue of housing is a central issue for any city area. Today, we have movement, population concentration, different ways of life, so we have a need for very varied construction in order to accommodate everyone. For households, for individuals, it is an essential aspect of everyday life, and a large financial aspect. Housing is regularly characterized by crises, crunch points, or by sections of society who no longer have access to housing or who are living in substandard conditions. This is what Abbé Pierre pointed at in the 1950s. In France, we had a long phase of construction, including the housing complexes in the suburbs of Paris and the reduction of shanty towns, for better or for worse. Housing is also a commercial product. One of the current changes is what we call financialization. Construction, housing is becoming a commodity, that is bought and sold by those who see it as a financial asset like any other. There are certain towns we call "strong-box towns" in which housing becomes a financial activity, for families in Hong Kong, Latin America, who want a pied-à-terre in London, Paris or New York. So, the housing market in large urban areas attracts investors from all over the world, though French investors are the majority. The city area attracts new populations, as well as investors, because of the labour market and people's lifestyles. Because of this, since the 1990s, towards the end of the 1990s, in the large European cities, particularly London and Paris, the cost of housing shot up, whether for the sales or rental market. Since 1995, the cost of housing has increased threefold, fourfold, in the Parisian region. As competition for housing increases, so does cost. This affects the most fragile sections of society and people move further and further away. We have seen construction of residential areas in places like Seine-et-Marne and Montois. We see populations piling up in unstable situations as well as the large housing complexes who are experiencing hardship. The gap widens between the needs of the population and the housing available, which is more focused on the middle and upper classes. Neither market mechanism nor public policy has a solution to this lack of housing. We know that in the Parisian region, lots of mayors are very aware of their local population because of their political control. Some wanted to keep the social housing, those who are more left-wing, and some wanted to avoid it. This is changing. This also requires a large amount of public funding and raises fundamental social questions around the type of urban renewal, like town policy. This urban renewal is a key issue in the Parisian region. The creation of the Grand Paris local authority, the Grand Paris metropolis, it is an opportunity to create a more active and interventionist housing policy and work towards more inclusive access to housing across Grand Paris, and also to strengthen investment, public and private, in property construction in Grand Paris and throughout the Parisian region. We are building housing, but is it enough? For who, financed by who? These are the questions at the heart of the controversy. We will consider the issues of expropriation, eviction, and the organization of society, in relation to housing.
