Landscape of Discontent

Andrew Newman is assistant professor of anthropology at Wayne State University in Detroit.

• ContentsAbbreviations Introduction1. Poets and Locomotives: Ecology and Politics on the Margins of Paris 2. Space, Style, and Grassroots Strategy in the Éole Mobilization3. Cultivating the Republic? Parks, Gardens, and Youth4. The End(s) of Urban Ecology in the Global City5. To Watch and Be Watched: Urban Design, Vigilance, and Contested Streets6. The Political Life of Small Urban SpacesConclusionAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

"From Haussmann to Charlie Hebdo, Paris has always demanded our attention. Efforts to vigilantly reimagine the city and its inhabitants remain one of the most important tasks in this urban century, and Andrew Newman’s Landscape of Discontent provides masterful insights into what urban nature has been and can be."-Nik Heynen, University of Georgia"Andrew Newman has crafted a dynamic account of how local residents and activists can transform a social and physical urban environment by drawing in the very political forces-including city planners-that imagine themselves as the true shapers of that reality."-Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University"This is a fantastic book that should be required reading for anyone invested in debates on the right to the city, urban political ecology, and the cultural politics of belonging in contemporary France."-Antipode"An important contribution to a small, but growing body of Anglophone literature on housing and the built environment in late twentieth-century France."-H-France Review"Landscape of Discontent makes an important contribution to the politics of urban development, environmental activism, political power, and ethnocultural relations within the contemporary global city of Paris."-American Anthropologist"The author describes the grassroots protests opposing the rail company–led project for economic development and the political moves leading to the building of the park, bringing to light the actions and motives of activists and inhabitants, through interviews, conversations, and his own involvement in daily activities in the neighborhood."-Journal of Urban Affairs"Through research with residents, activists, and urban planners, Newman weaves together a detailed ethnography of grassroots mobilization with a structural analysis of neoliberal urbanism."-Metropolitics