From Technical Standards to Urban Planning: Villagexpo

7When this project was first mentioned in early 1965, the goal stated by what was then the Ministry of Construction was to “find rational solutions for the construction of single-family homes.” [13] These were the words of Yves Aubert, a graduate of École Polytechnique and civil engineer with the Corps of Bridges and Roads, with 43 years of experience. This senior civil servant specializing in industrialization and building standards headed the ministry’s Directorate of Construction, where he spent most of his career. From 1958 to 1961, he was director of the research and programs department, which was tasked with selecting model projects eligible for Logecos loans, [14] before becoming technical advisor to Minister Sudreau at the time when the Priority Areas for Urban Development (Zones à Urbaniser en Priorité – ZUP) were being put in place, offering ideal locations for standardized construction. For Aubert, the rationalization of single-family homes was a technical issue [15] that would entail industrializing production in order to make these units more affordable. Thus from its inception, this operation was designed to create a selection of affordable houses, a distinct feature of which was that selected models would be on show as an open-air display future potential buyers could visit. As Aubert saw it,

8

The goal is to open a display of single-family homes in the Paris region by December 1965, when many families come to the capital for Christmas shopping … Several prototypes of various homes will be built on a site in the Paris suburbs. After the display closes, they will be sold as homes and lived in. [16]

9The planning documents for the project, which was not yet called “Villagexpo,” made no mention of urban development. Aubert addressed neither the type of urban setting nor the plots on which these model homes would be built. In the note cited above, which was devoted to the technical aspects of construction, he specified that: “Since it is not my area, I assume that land will not be a problem.” The evaluation panel first met in the summer of 1965 to assess the architectural qualities of the models designed by builders wishing to participate in the display, not to discuss the land on which the prototypes would be built. This drew criticism from the National Board of Architects (Conseil Supérieur de l’Ordre des Architectes), which objected to the lack of discussion about the clustering of houses.

10Since the architects on the evaluation panel found the quality of the models submitted unsatisfactory, the display was postponed until 1966 to give participants time to improve their proposals. [17] In the meantime, the operation was renamed “Villagexpo” and the display was scheduled to be held at Saint-Michel-sur-Orge (Essonne). However, its supporters no longer presented it as a mere technical experiment but as an innovative urban planning operation. In the meantime, the former Ministry of Construction and the Office of Public Works merged to form the new Ministry of Public Works. Public works and housing officials appeared to want to change the goal of the project, just as their institutions were being reformed. Edgard Pisani, the new Minister of Public Works, and Roland Nungesser, State Secretary for Housing, both stated at the opening and closing ceremonies of the project that they were more interested in its contribution to urban planning than in the question of construction techniques, which they deemed less useful. In fact, while the Ministry of Public Works was being created, Pisani strongly pushed for it to emphasize coordinated government action in the area of urban planning. Meanwhile, Nungesser, a former president of the Paris Region District, worked with Paul Delouvrier [18] in creating a master plan and in launching new cities. [19] When Villagexpo was first opened to the media, Pisani emphasized that the purpose of the project went “well beyond a mere technical demonstration” and showed that it was possible to avoid the “dual pitfall of excessively dispersed houses and oversized housing estates.” He contrasted the design of this “new village” (to use the expression appearing in the newspapers) [20] from an “isolated house in the middle of a large plot,” a symbol of rural ownership now outdated or excessively scattered. As Pisani put it,

11

We now have proof that it is possible to increase density without undermining the principle of the single-family home . . . the days of planting carrots in the garden are over. [21]

12In a speech entitled “For a policy on single-family homes,” Nungesser was just as clear about the meaning of the operation, stating that: “It is more than an exhibit, it is a trial village.” He depicted the project as a symbol of the government’s desire to amend the ZUP policy and to shift the focus away from collective housing. He also designed the layout of the display, which featured smaller private spaces and consisted of small clusters of houses called “hamlets.” [22] This was intended to serve as a possible model for the future development of single-family homes in urban areas. In his words,

13

In these conditions, we should identify areas to be devoted primarily to family housing. Depending on the site, two options are possible: areas of clustered single-family homes (or “hamlets”) with 25 houses per hectare, and areas of more dispersed single-family homes with no more than five houses per hectare, for example in wooded areas. These two options should end the chaotic development of suburbs, the negative aspects of which were well documented after World War I.

14Since no land was set aside for these new sets of clustered homes, at the conclusion of the operation, Nungesser asked Delouvrier, now prefect of the Paris region and director of the Master Plan for Development and Urban Planning (SDAU), to search for land on which other clusters of 300 to 500 houses could be built in a way “similar to what was done at Villagexpo.” [23] Although he agreed to join the ministry in financing 12,500 houses over three years in clusters of at least 500 houses, only a dozen construction sites were operating three years later, bringing the total number of houses to fewer than 2,500. [24] Clearly, convincing developers to undertake such large-scale projects was no easy task.

Stimulating Supply: The Ministry of Public Works’ Struggle with Builders of Single-Family Homes

15The issue of single-family homes changed categories, from technical policy to urban planning, as well as hands, going from Aubert to Nungesser and finally to Delouvrier. To achieve its goals, the ministry had to undertake additional work. Other than finding land, it also had to convince single-family home builders to become subdivision developers. However, such developers were virtually non-existent in France at the time. Very few large subdivisions had ever been built by a single company. In 1966, just one building permit was issued in all of France for a cluster of over 500 houses, and only 36 for clusters of over 100 residences. [25] The majority of single-family homes were being built by small private contractors. Prefabricated home builders participating in the scheme had previously met the demand from clients who already owned land—whether an isolated plot or one located in a subdivision—and who wanted to have one of the model homes built on it. The planning documents for Villagexpo drafted by Aubert acknowledged these practices. The goal was to attract large numbers of future buyers to the display, where they would select a model to have built on land they had to find themselves. Nungesser was surprised by the widespread appeal of Villagexpo and by its high attendance (with 230,000–250,000 visitors) because in his eyes, this project was intended for professionals rather than the general public. As he put it,

16

The operation was highly successful among professionals and the general public. Those in charge of Villagexpo thought that it would primarily appeal to specialists: companies, industrialists, technicians, architects, semi-public construction companies, private developers, or representatives of local government, and large numbers of people from all of those categories came from all over France to visit Villagexpo. However, the exhibit also greatly appealed to the general public.

17The secretary of state believed that the exhibit would foster a change in professionals’ practices by promoting the “creation of a fully-fledged single-family home market to replace the piecemeal approach in force until now.” In October 1966, Aubert, still the head of the Directorate of Construction in the new Ministry of Public Works, called a meeting of representatives of the National Federation of Developers-Builders (Fédération Nationale des Promoteurs-Constructeurs), the National Federation of Builders (Fédération Nationale du Bâtiment), and the Public Housing Union (Union HLM) at which he expressed an “urgent need” to build subdivisions consisting of the most sought-after models. [26] In late 1966, Pierre Charlet, the general commissioner of the display and director of the technical office at the Directorate of Construction, reiterated this recommendation when addressing a meeting of professionals, calling on them to restructure the single-family home sector, arguing that,

18

Villagexpo paves the way for a complete shift in the process of building single-family homes. It is based on the principle of American-style home builders, whereby developers buy land, design model floor plans, build a few models, draw up rigorous plans for the entire area in question, and then sell the houses to buyers after they visit the models on display . . . This will industrialize the home building sector and replace the piecemeal approach with a coherent market-oriented approach.

19However, builders of single-family homes did not view these recommendations in a positive light. The conflict taking shape between the ministry and builders’ representatives united under the Single-Family Home Builders’ Union (Syndicat des Constructeurs de Maisons Individuelles – SMI) pertained to what conclusions should be drawn from the success of Villagexpo. Nungesser argued that the high number of visitors meant that people “were no longer interested in having their houses built independently” and were attracted to a “new urban concept that was so different from housing estates” [27] based on limited private spaces and large common areas. Charlet reiterated this stance to building professionals, stressing that visitors to the display were “attracted to the approach” he called “horizontal co-ownership” and that they “left the display no longer interested in buying land and then building a house of their choosing on it.” [28] However, one SMI representative argued that the opposite was true:

20

At the booth of single-family home builders, we noticed the opposite trend. Nearly 50,000 people visited it. We cannot cite survey data, but one very common question was: “How can I buy land?” I see my share of clients, and I am absolutely convinced that French people want at least one enclosure around them and their own unique home. [29]

21Charlet then informed the SMI representative that the expansion of single-family residences in urban areas could no longer follow the housing estate approach, which used up too much land. He argued that this approach had to be replaced by clustered houses requiring buyers to settle for less private space, claiming that “although buyers have been accustomed to the piecemeal approach taken until now,” which forced them to purchase their own land, they appeared willing to change their minds as soon as they were offered the possibility of purchasing a prefabricated home. However, a survey commissioned by the State Secretary for Housing showed the SMI’s argument to be correct as the majority of visitors to Villagexpo claimed they were seeking a “truly individual” house, or at least one built according their own specifications on a plot of their choosing, whereas only 30.5% were attracted to the clustered approach. [30] This conflict persisted during the years between Villagexpo and the launch of the Chalandon scheme. Several meetings were held on the issue of single-family homes with government representatives and building professionals at which both sides cited studies and experts whose conclusions often diverged. [31] The ministry therefore commissioned studies of “what people want” from single-family homes. [32] One of these studies’ goals was to demonstrate potential buyers’ interest in the clustered homes approach. Prior to the Chalandon scheme, a document was drafted for future winners, giving them an overview of their future client base. It claimed that clustered residences did not appeal to executives but to blue- and white-collar workers, who were “four times more likely than high-income households to embrace the concept of large subdivisions consisting of single-family homes, believing that these offered them financial advantages.” However, these results were largely determined by the questions asked since respondents had to make their selection on the basis of a fictitious scenario in which a house located in a cluster was 50% cheaper than an isolated home. This left the case unproven. A meeting on single-family homes was held in 1969, which focused on the technical aspects of the costs of building single-family homes and of the determinants of these costs. At this meeting, André Pux, SMI president and CEO of Maisons Phénix, the largest French builder of prefabricated homes, claimed that the clustered option was not necessarily more affordable and pointed out that “homes prefabricated to varying degrees built on buyers’ own land” could be just as affordable. [33] Following changes to the ministry’s scope of action and duties, its officials ended up promoting a new standard model for individual home ownership based on high densities, reduced private spaces, and large-scale urban projects, which they claimed fulfilled the wishes of low-income families. However, conditions in the private building sector were not ripe for this model to flourish.

Sending a Shockwave through the Private Construction Sector

23In November 1968, Chalandon issued a simple injunction to his advisors and division heads, charging them to find a way to drastically reduce the cost of single-family homes. [38] This injunction was issued at a time when his cabinet was working on reforming the public housing loan (prêts HLM accession) scheme, which offered low-income households a means of financing home ownership. At the time, its maximum amount did not provide enough capital for these households to purchase homes. [39] However, the task of reforming the terms of these loans fell to the Ministry of Finance, which was in no hurry to act. The minister’s cabinet therefore designed an alternative solution in order to make the financing the Directorate of Construction was tasked with allocating more efficient through lower costs rather than increases in loan amounts. For the ministry, the advantage of this mode of intervention was that it did not require approval from the Ministry of Finance since it gave priority to allocating existing funds to low-cost projects instead of seeking additional funds.

24Two civil engineers with the Corps of Bridges and Roads, Yves Aubert, still head of the Directorate of Construction, and Raoul Rudeau, from the Directorate of Land and Urban Planning (Direction de l’Aménagement Foncier et de l’Urbanisme – DAFU), and three of the minister’s technical advisors, who were all professional architects or urban planners, formed a working group aiming to draw up proposals. The notion that lowering costs would require standardizing models and creating large clusters of homes seemed the only obvious solution. Citing technical reasons, Aubert advised combining the Villagexpo approach with a procedure involving “approved models,” a system for standardizing construction that encouraged public housing bodies (Habitation à Loyer Modéré – HLM) to mass-produce plans selected by the ministry, which would be applied to builders selected to mass produce low-cost model homes. This was to be achieved in two ways: by optimizing floor plans and thus reducing material and development costs (including limiting the length of piping, among other things), and by mass producing model homes in order to achieve economies of scale. The idea of launching a competitive project with the more ambitious goal of creating a “fully-fledged single-family home industry” came from Jacques-Henri Labourdette, technical advisor to the minister and an architect involved in several housing estate programs, including Sarcelles. [40] His views mirrored those expressed at the conclusion of Villagexpo, namely that the single-family home sector was too homespun given that France’s largest private builder, Phénix, “produced barely 2,000 homes each year” and needed to be transformed. Labourdette stated the need for building companies able to provide land planning, development, construction, and marketing for subdivisions. His objective, which was stated in the official rules of the competitive scheme, was to reverse the ratio of the dispersed sector to the clustered sector by raising the proportion of single-family homes built by the latter from 20% to 80%. His approach expanded on that of Aubert, envisaging several groups of developers and companies being selected, each of which would build seven or eight subdivisions consisting of approximately 1,000 homes built according to a few standard models for a total of at least 25,000 new homes. The working group endorsed the idea of sending a “shockwave” through the single-family home market, arguing that,

25

We need to bring the total cost of building four-room homes down to 60,000 francs in the Paris region and to 50,000 francs elsewhere. This will require combined operations and creating a mass-production market in which one company can produce 2,000 to 3,000 homes yearly. Currently, the leading company, Phénix, sells 2,000 homes per year at 80,000 francs. We need to move beyond the status quo and reduce prices. A new professional sector must be created. The competition should send a shockwave. [41]

26The competitive rules reflected the usual methods of the Directorate of Construction for fostering lower costs, which were to set caps and give the builders who complied with them priority access to subsidized financing. All agreed that a large-scale operation was needed to restructure the single-family home sector, and this goal was clearly expressed by senior officials from the Directorates of Construction and of Urban Development during the selection process. They wanted to convince the evaluation panel, and especially members who were architects and had doubts about the quality of some of the proposals, to select as many winners as possible. As Rudeau, the head of DAFU, stated:

27

We must open urban development to new players and flood the market with low-cost single-family homes. It would be better to retain average proposals to achieve a mass effect than to eliminate the average ones and fail to achieve this effect. [42]

28The quantitative goal of the competitive scheme was raised to 60,000 homes in the form of subdivisions of a minimum size of 500 units on undeveloped land and 250 elsewhere. Lastly, to ensure maximum volume, the ministry set laxer requirements for obtaining building permits. For instance, candidates were allowed to make proposals in areas not zoned for building, such as rural areas, in order free up low-cost land. While the competitive rules stipulated that receiving approval from the local authorities in such areas was preferable, this was not a requirement. Therefore, when the evaluators met in late 1969, they did not take into account opposition from local officials in their decisions since government representatives had stressed the need to force the issue among local politicians so that enough proposals could be retained. [43] At the same time, technical advisors tasked with drawing up a presentation of the ministry’s urban development policy for a press conference described the competition as opening a door to new urban development and, not surprisingly, used anti-housing estate rhetoric to emphasize the benefits of clustered single-family homes, [44] arguing that

29

The lack of combined operations and the narrowness of the market have prevented the technical or aesthetic progress in this area needed to radically alter the disastrous image of suburban housing estates … Single-family homes must be built according to careful planning. We must not recreate the poor suburbs that sprung up after World War I … On the contrary, I want single-family homes to be built according to an urban development strategy aimed at creating a new type of village comprised of clusters of single-family homes. [45]

30Rather than offering indiscriminate support to the growing single-family homes sector, the officials working on the scheme intended to take this sector in a different direction. However, the rules of the competition, which reflected the usual methods for lowering the construction costs of low-income housing, with priority access to financing given to those complying with price caps, received only tepid support from private developers and builders. Despite claims that the ministry’s promotion of complicity between an “administrative technocracy” and “large public-sector bodies” would have negative impacts, the quantitative objectives of the competitive scheme could only be achieved via participation by low-income housing bodies and semi-public developers.

Toward Public Housing Operations “Pure and Simple”

31The majority of winners were builders from the public and semi-public sectors, with over 70% of chalandonnettes financed by public housing loans for which only these companies were eligible. [46] Though this is surprising in light of the goal of fostering American-style construction companies, [47] it may be attributed to the characteristics of the participants. Few well-established private developers submitted proposals, whereas many prefabricated home builders, from which ministry officials expected a high participation, [48] did. Yet their proposals did not meet the selection criteria since they refused to align them with the ministry’s recommendations. The first round of 21 selected proposals showed “adequate potential” to achieve the minimum number of homes set for each winner (7,500). [49] The majority of proposals (11) that made it through the first round were from companies with ties to the public sector, namely low-income housing bodies, semi-public companies, subsidiaries of collectors of employers’ contributions, [50] and the Deposits and Consignments Fund.

32Companies aligned with the American model of builders such as Levitt-France or Kauffman and Broad opted not to participate despite the fact that meetings designed to attract them were held. Three large single-family home builders submitted proposals. The proposal from France’s leading low-cost home builder, Phénix, was controversial. Architects on the evaluation panel claimed that its proposed models were too similar to the ones it already had on the market and that it did not comply with the price caps since it had cut back on the services offered (a five-room house was in fact a four-room house). Concerned about selecting enough winners to achieve a mass effect, officials from the Directorates of Construction and Urban Development were hesitant about eliminating this company, arguing that “Phénix has appeal and good market positioning” and that “its approach aligns with the spirit of the competition and current policy.” However, in spite of attempts to keep it in the competition, Pux’s company refused to modify its models. When it was offered a second chance, Phénix only submitted a limited number of projects, bringing its total to just 183 homes. [51] Since the company was experiencing solid growth in the early 1970s, it probably had limited interest in the Chalandon scheme. The evaluation panel unanimously deemed the proposals submitted by other prefabricated home builders to lack credibility on the grounds that in order to achieve the minimum of 7,500 homes, they proposed very large subdivisions (in some cases as many as four or five clusters with over 1,000 homes each) on undeveloped land without considering the necessary zoning operations, which was to draw criticism from local authorities. Nor did the proposals from private developers meet all of the criteria, particularly that on price caps. For its part, STIM Bouygues eliminated itself by refusing to replace construction sites that had been rejected for technical reasons between Phase One and Phase Two of the competition. As a result, the leading private developers were unable—or unwilling—to meet the criteria set beforehand and dropped out. At the end of deliberations, the evaluation panel selected seven winners, whose proposals would allow for the building over 60,000 homes over three years. Chalandon’s speech at the awards ceremony acknowledged the fact that

33

Most winners of this competition are from the public sector. In fact, of the seven winners, only one is a private company and one a semi-public company. I would like to congratulate the public sector companies that were motivated and driven to action by the competitive spirit I sought to introduce and that answered my call. [52]

34Because it was of limited appeal to private builders and developers, the scheme drew most interest from low-income housing developers with ties to collectors of the employers’ contribution or to the cooperative sector, which since the late 1960s had taken an interest in clustered single-family homes. One company that benefited greatly from the scheme was GIE-CIMI, which was represented by the low-income housing subsidiary of a contribution collector based in France’s Nord region, which had spent the previous few years focusing on the production of densely clustered single-family homes at very low prices. As part of the competition, this company built over 20,000 homes all over France and became the country’s leading developer under the name of GMF-CARPI, with the slogan: “Buy with 600 francs down.” Another winner was the Cooperative Association (Société Coopérative d’Intérêt Collectif – SCIC) functioning as a subsidiary of the Deposits and Consignments Fund, which had built many housing estates and had been branching out into the single-family home sector since the mid-1960s. [53] Intended to restructure the private building sector, the competitive scheme altered the way public housing loans were used, with 50 to 55% of residences intended for private ownership built by public bodies between 1970 and 1976 consisting of clustered single-family homes. [54] In light of issues related to loan allocations due to the heavy presence of Chalandon-related operations with public housing status in his own local area and that diverted resources away from non-winners, the head of construction in the ministry’s local office in the Nord region (Direction Départementale de l’Equipement du Nord – DDE) questioned the end result of the competition, claiming that it led to “public housing operations pure and simple,” [55] a far cry from the intended objective of stimulating American-style builders.

Housing Estates, Horizontal Public Housing, or Real Single-Family Homes?

36Although the ministry’s early assessments of the Chalandon scheme were positive, with the earliest ones describing it as a commercial success, or simply as a “success,” [60] these grew more negative over the years. The first round of criticism came between 1970 and 1974 when Robert Lion was named head of the Directorate of Construction. An ENA alumnus and inspector of finances who was just 35 years old when he accepted the position, this former associate of Pisani and Delouvrier did not have the usual background of the engineers in the Directorate of Construction, who had worked their way through local offices before obtaining senior positions in the ministry. Like the young innovators described by Bourdieu and Christin, he was among an elite class of civil servants inclined to adopt a reformist stance that supported in-depth reform of the government’s modes of intervention in housing matters in the early 1970s. [61] However, Lion was unique in that he defended his reformist positions in institutions whose usual interests and methods they went against, first as head of the Directorate of Construction and then as general delegate of the public housing (HLM) movement, and opted for compromise. On the subject of single-family housing policy, his position was also two-sided since after helping to make the competitive scheme a success, he then criticized its outcomes. Appointed by Chalandon, he unreservedly supported the idea of sending a shockwave through the low-cost housing market at the start of the competitive scheme, yet at the same time challenged the ministry’s technical policy, which he believed had been promoting assembly-line architecture and quantitative goals for the last two decades. [62] In keeping with his desire to break from the practices of his predecessors, he brought quality architecture to the fore when in 1971, helping to found the Plan-Construction program, which was created to fund architectural research and experimentation. This body promoted residences that were very different from those of the Chalandon scheme, which were criticized by architects on the evaluation panel for being banal. The initiatives of the Plan-Construction program pertaining to individual homes focused on innovative forms of intermediary residences (semi-individual or semi-communal housing) and were geared more toward experimentation than mass production. [63] By shifting the ministry’s technical policy on single-family housing toward experimental projects, [64] Lion showed that he approved of the critical views of the outcome of the Chalandon scheme that were taking shape in the ministry’s research offices. Although he preferred clustered single-family homes to the chaotic growth of dispersed home construction, he was concerned that these “high-density new villages” were too similar to the “controversial housing estates.” [65] At the time when construction of apartment buildings on housing estates was halted and they were being criticized for fostering segregation—a critical view Lion helped to forge as co-founder of the think-tanks known as Residential and Social Life (Habitat et Vie Sociale), which laid the groundwork for France’s subsequent urban policy—this designation was hardly used in a positive light. This position was expressed in the works of GRECOH, [66] a research unit of the ministry that in the early 1970s brought together young alumni of ENA and École Polytechnique, who were tasked with generating ideas for reforming housing policy. [67] According to the briefing notes written by its sociology division, which was tasked with collecting data on the qualitative aspects of housing and conducting research on the links between “residences and lifestyles,” [68] some suggested that Chalandon-style subdivisions had the same flaws as housing estates and that their occupants viewed them as properties with little value. Their authors cited a large-scale study of 24 Chalandon-style subdivisions funded by the Plan-Construction program and conducted by the CRESAL sociology research group, which provided a detailed account of the reasons for satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) among buyers of chalandonnettes, a label that figured in the study’s title. Although this study found that the competitive scheme did promote home ownership among low-income households (with most of those surveyed being skilled and specialized workers, many of whom felt that they had a good deal), it also found that buyers of these low-cost residences tended to view them as low quality:

37

People bought single-family homes but had to face the high density of housing estates and the problems of close proximity with other households, including noise and other aspects of communal living. Some claimed that they were merely “horizontal public housing units” . . .

38These factors led to Chalandon-style single-family homes being viewed as inferior, or at least as inferior to the houses in subdivisions generally advertised by realtors and which the average French person dreamed of owning. In brief, they came to be viewed as houses for poor people. [69]

39Although the conclusions of the study by CRESAL were not entirely one-sided, the briefing notes by GRECOH, which summarized its main points, emphasized the comparison with housing estates, as did a summary sent to the head of the Directorate of Construction in 1974, which stated that “most critiques [of Chalandon-style subdivisions] are the same as those commonly made of housing estates.” [70] This finding reiterates an idea expressed from 1973 in a series of notes on single-family residences sent by GRECOH to the head of the Directorate of Construction, arguing that owning a clustered single-family home was not a real form of single-family home ownership. [71] These overall conclusions were based on sociological work on housing, particularly research conducted on subdivided homes in the 1960s by the Institute of Urban Sociology (Institut de Sociologie Urbaine – ISU). [72] Basing their arguments on Lefebvre’s notion of “appropriation” and the claim of authors of the Pavillonnaires that subdivisions were different from housing estates since they were amenable to being appropriated, the authors of these notes cast doubt on the benefits of clustered single-family homes and new villages, “which in many respects are too similar to public housing,” and thus deserved the demeaning label of “horizontal public housing units.” To provide a clearer definition of the characteristics of real single-family homes, GRECOH commissioned an “in-depth study in order to compare practices in communal and individual spaces,” [73] the first of a series of such studies. In the second half of the 1970s, an increasing number of studies in the field of the sociology of housing, which were funded by research bodies in the Ministry of Public Works, addressed the specificities of single-family homes, particularly those located in subdivisions, along with the lifestyles associated with them. [74] The earliest criticism of houses built under the Chalandon scheme appeared in studies that used terms such as “housing estates,” “horizontal HLMs,” or “horizontal public housing units” and that were funded by the research offices of the ministry and endorsed by Lion. This criticism reaffirmed that according to occupants of chalandonnettes, these properties did not constitute real single-family homes.

The Future of Clustered Single-Family Homes in Light of Administrative Changes in the Directorate of Construction

40The criticism from experts in the ministry’s research division, which at that time consisted of intellectual trail blazers, aligned with the negative views of Lion, who wanted his offices to emphasize quality and architectural innovation. However, officials in the Directorate of Construction with more technical backgrounds still believed that clustered homes were the best way to regulate the growth of single-family homes. Following the election in 1974 to the presidency of Giscard d’Estaing, who made single-family homes and home ownership priorities of his term of office, the question of continuing the competitive scheme was raised. From 1974 to 1976, the Directorate of Construction worked on designing a new policy on clustered single-family homes that would replace the Chalandon initiatives. [75] However, these talks remained confined to the Ministry of Public Works even as a broader debate was taking shape involving all actors with a stake in housing policy in light of the reform to public housing aid. One important element in this debate was the meeting of the Barre Commission in 1975. Lion left the Directorate of Construction in 1974 to take the reins of the HLM public housing movement, where he helped to write a white paper outlining the views of social agencies on this issue. Therefore, the increase in the number of meetings between DDE representatives and ministry officials on the continuation of the ministry’s policy on single-family homes took place under the auspices of a new head of the Directorate of Construction, Pierre Hervio, a civil engineer with the Corps of Bridges and Roads and former DDE director, whose background was more technical and less wide ranging than that of his predecessor. As a result, a new consensus emerged to continue with the competitive scheme but to change its rules. The DDE representatives wanted to change the land aspects of the scheme because the existing rules placed no restrictions on the plots bidders could propose but forced them instead to enter into complex negotiations with local communities and to rush to schedule zoning operations. Instead, they proposed that the directors of local offices should play greater roles upstream by selecting land already undergoing development. [76] In addition, the effect of the comparison between clustered single-family homes and housing estates was clear as all agreed on setting a maximum instead of a minimum number of homes, the maximum being 200 houses per builder. [77] However, participants disagreed on whether the ministry should continue with its “interventionist” [78] policy by entering into contracts at the national level with developers likely to carry out operations all over the country in order to support developers who stood up to the test of the first competitive scheme, or whether DDEs should be allowed to enter into contracts with local developers depending on the availability of land in each region. This was the solution that was adopted despite its being called “lax” by the head of the technical office of the Directorate of Construction, who argued that it meant that the ministry was giving up on supporting the growth of national builders, which he claimed would prevent “qualitative and quantitative improvements” to home construction. The centralized approach to planning used as part of the competitive scheme was subject to increasing criticism. Pierre Mayet, the new DAFU director and member of the modernizing “young cohort” at the Corps of Bridges and Roads [79] that supported decentralizing urban policies, argued that local officials should be closely involved in selecting plots and that operations should be scaled back as much as possible (to between 20 and 200 homes). [80] These regional competitive schemes were launched in 1976 and were managed by regional offices of the Ministry of Public Works, which were tasked with collaborating with local officials in finding suitable land. Meanwhile, the central offices of the ministry withdrew from the coordination of these schemes, which were slow in getting underway, and referred public housing bodies that wanted to participate but could not acquire the planning documents to regional offices, which were solely responsible for launching the active consultation phase. These [81] (CRUGMIG) only ended up building 2,300 to 2,500 houses, a number that was much lower than that of the Chalandon scheme. [82] The withdrawal of the ministry’s Directorate of Construction from these projects was finalized when Hervio was replaced by Jean-François Bloch-Lainé, an ENA alumnus and inspector of finances from the French Treasury, who took over the leadership of the Directorate of Construction with a view to implementing the controversial reform to housing aid adopted in 1977. A specialist in public finances, Bloch-Lainé took little interest in the technical policy on clustered homes. [83] The only exception was in 1976–1977, when the Directorate of Construction and the Central Secretariat for New Cities (Secrétariat Central des Villes Nouvelles) defined the framework for subdivisions in order to shift the construction of new cities in the Paris region toward single-family residences. [84] Thus government intervention to regulate individual residences affected only in the typical scope of urban planning. Within the restricted administrative space that constituted the Directorate of Construction, the new disagreements and power relations described by Bourdieu and Christin regarding plans for implementing the reform to housing aid were tangible. With the growing presence in its research and leadership divisions of a reformist elite supporting new forms of government intervention in housing, more qualitative for Lion and more decentralized for Mayet, and following the reform of 1977 aiming at facilitating access to home loans, with personalized housing aid being extended to home buyers, the central offices of the ministry stopped playing a direct role in defining forms of low-income housing, thereby opening the door for the growth of dispersed housing, despite having been strongly opposed to it in the late 1960s.

From the Discrediting of Chalandonnettes to the Loss of Legitimacy of Government Intervention in Private Construction

41Whereas the move away from the policy on clustered single-family homes stemmed from changes within the Directorate of Construction, an emerging scandal surrounding the chalandonnettes scheme in turn eroded the legitimacy of its interventions in the private construction sector as issues pertaining to the partially faulty construction of some clusters of chalandonnettes became increasingly widely publicized. Starting in 1975 when the Directorate of Construction was working on regional competitive schemes, many of its officials expressed concerns over the negative perception the public had of these government-sponsored schemes. As a report stated, “The public can view government-sponsored competitions as a factor for innovation or as a factor that sacrifices quality, as was the case with the CIMI.” [85]

42Leading up to the regional competitive schemes, the Directorate of Construction recommended replacing the term “competition” (concours) with “promotion” (promotion) to prevent these schemes from being associated with the Chalandon scheme. However, the directorate also stated that faulty construction was not very widespread among homes built under that scheme. Responding to “repeated accusations by the media that many Chalandon-style homes had serious defects,” [86] the office conducted an assessment of the scheme in 1977, which found that only 4,077 of the 60,000 homes were defective. Although this assessment acknowledged that the quality-control mechanisms the DDEs were tasked with implementing were inadequate, it also deplored the fact that the public image of the scheme was so heavily influenced by only 7% to 8% of all homes built under it. Starting in 1977, the fate of buyers claiming to have suffered from the faulty construction of Chalandon-style homes became the object of questions parliamentarians sent to the central government, in which they requested financial aid for buyers who had purchased such homes in their districts and were struggling. [87] Although the Directorate of Construction claimed that the government was not responsible, it recommended offering assistance to these buyers in order to “protect the image of the scheme and all government-sponsored competitions.” However, this image was definitively tarnished when the National Assembly passed a bill on construction insurance and parliamentarians voiced lengthy criticisms of the chalandonnettes scheme as part of a more general critique of the segregation fostered by prior housing policies. Communist parliamentarians decried the “rubble” they claimed was caused by the Chalandon scheme and by a policy that encouraged home ownership. They were even joined by pro-government parliamentarians as well as Eugène Claudius-Petit, former Minister of Reconstruction and Urban Planning, who criticized the “myth of low-cost homes.” [88] The argument of the Directorate of Construction and the State Secretary for Housing whereby these construction defects were matters for the civil courts no longer seemed credible, and the ministry created a service dedicated to studying claims of faulty construction, which it found to exist in 12.8% of homes built under the Chalandon scheme. [89] As a result, the scheme came to a close amidst allegations that government intervention in the construction sector had had disastrous consequences. For many years, the term chalandonnettes remained a synonym for low-quality housing. The idea of holding government-sponsored competitions in order to lower construction costs, which had received various labels since the 1950s and had reached a new magnitude in the single-family home sector thanks to the Chalandon scheme, was relegated to the back burner for years to come.

43The creation of numerous standards for what low-income ownership is (or should be) are the result of these unsuccessful attempts by the Ministry of Public Works to regulate the growth of single-family homes in the early 1970s. Some of these attempts, including the rejection of unregulated suburban development (yet to be called “suburban sprawl”) were agreed upon by the political and administrative elites of the time and were frequently cited by ministers, senior civil servants, architects, and urban planners. They were also expressed in more technical language when the aim was to propose a counter-model to this stigmatized form of suburban development and to propose a positive definition of rationalized single-family homes, which became known as clustered single-family residences. However, this definition was strongly opposed by private actors, particularly by builders of prefabricated single-family homes whose interests hardly aligned with the central government’s wish to restructure their modes of production and who spread a discourse of the need for “real” single-family homes, complete with clearly defined private spaces symbolized by enclosures. Surveys by experts of the preferences and aspirations of French people as well as sociological studies of lifestyles in various types of single-family residences lent credence to both of these positions. In the 1970s, the administrative, political, industrial, and intellectual elites all seemed to have views about low-income home ownership, related issues of changes in the private and public construction sectors, and the nature of government intervention in private construction. Thus rather than treating this decade as the decade that witnessed the emergence of a new policy promoting the growth of low-cost single-family homes, this paper argues that it witnessed instead several approaches to government involvement in this sector competing against each other at the national level. The symbolic devaluation of the chalandonnettes illustrates how the legitimacy of direct government intervention in the low-cost home sector was eroded, making way for a new type of government support for low-income home ownership, namely measures designed to facilitate buyers’ access to home loans, most of which were introduced in the reform to housing aid in 1977.