La promotion de la vie sociale dans les nouveaux ensembles urbains. L'exemple des Centres sociaux.

The article discusses government programs to promote the social life of people living in collective housing projects in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on the example of the Centres Sociaux public squares in the middle of mass urban housing projects. The article describes the influence of the modernization of the French society on urban design and renewal projects, the utopian assumptions underlying the the design and construction of large-scale collective housing projects, and the assumption in French society that government can intervene and shape the social life of French people.