A series about how cities are transforming, and the effect this has on everyday life.
As the sky began to turn lemon yellow one evening last month, about fifty Parisians marched to Rue de l’Aude in the south of the city and gathered in a nautical-themed attic space full of chairs.
Some of those present were already good friends or acquaintances; some had spied on each other on the street a few times. For others it was the first time they met. Yet they had all met their entry requirement: to bring cheese.
“I took a wheel of Époisses because my wife is from that region,” said one participant, Benjamin Dard, referring to a famously pungent and unctuous cow’s milk variety from Burgundy.
“Everyone bought something different related to them, in a way that paid tribute to the diversity of France,” Mr Dard said. He mentioned a former French president and added: “It’s like De Gaulle said, ‘How can you run a country where there are 300 different kinds of cheese?'”
Known as the Talking Cheese — which combines a range of dairy products with talks by locals about their fields — the gathering is part of a dizzying array of activities run by the Republic of Super Neighbors, a citizens’ initiative whose territory spans about 50 blocks. in the 14th arrondissement, a largely residential neighborhood on the left bank of the Seine.
More than 1,200 of these so-called Super Neighbors communicate through 40 WhatsApp groups that focus on questions such as finding a cat sitter or seeking help fixing broken appliances. They host weekly brunches, after-work drinks, and community gatherings where older residents share memories with younger generations. Much to the commotion, the group also organizes an annual banquet – La Table d’Aude – for the residents on a table 400 meters long, about 400 meters, in the middle of a street.
The hyperlocal experiment, started in 2017, is the brainchild of Patrick Bernard, a local resident and former journalist, who argues that the functioning of cities can be radically improved if urban policy focuses on ‘the most local entity in a city’.
“The urban strategy should focus on these microneighbourhoods, or three-minute villages, as I like to call them,” says Mr. Bernard, who estimates Paris could host 150 of these urban villages based on its population and geography. “Coziness is a wealth that sleeps. When we awaken the sense of place and community, citizens and the urban fabric are transformed.”
The Parisian project, whose motto is to transform neighbors who interact five times a day into people who interact fifty times a day, is at the forefront of what urban planners say is a rapidly expanding movement to get cities off the ground. and to reshape urban development. living from a hyperlocal prism of close interaction, mutual support and a sense of neighbourliness.
Our immediate environments, proponents argue, are the most effective platforms for people to build resilience to, and potentially mitigate, the growing number of crises facing urban populations, such as loneliness, food insecurity, extreme heat and social unrest related to inequality – as evidenced by the riots that rocked Paris and other French cities this summer. In other words, they say, cities of the future must be cities with villages, public spaces and neighbourhoods.
In Paris, where minorities often say they are socially and geographically pushed to the margins, Mr Bernard said his intention is not to exclude anyone. There are black, Muslim and East Asian members of the Super Neighbors. Participation is free. In the past, neighbors came together to pay the rent of a Malian refugee who joined them.
“Community must be at the heart of urban development,” says Ramon Marrades, director of Placemaking Europe, a network of European organizations that want to revitalize public space. “A good inclusive policy allows residents to be community actors, to have a sense of belonging and to be emotionally invested.”
Much attention has been paid to the 15-minute city, a hugely popular urban planning concept that aims to provide residents with all their basic needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride. But the challenge lies in how to implement this grand vision locally. While the 15-minute city provides the crucial physical infrastructure, the three-minute city is about shaping it to the needs and characteristics of the community.
“We need to develop a process to connect the two,” says Mr Marrades, who is in the middle of a two-year partnership with 15 European cities, including Helsinki, Finland, and Cork, Ireland, to embed hyper-locality and community building. at the core of urban policy.
Many cities around the world are engaged in this theme of hyperlocality. Barcelona is creating 503 Superblocks – micro-neighborhoods of 400 by 400 meters focused on community projects, green space and mobility – spread across the city. Across Sweden, a one-minute plan for cities aims to make all streets “healthy, sustainable and vibrant” by 2030, including the use of movable street furniture. In pilot phases, this led to people in cities, including Stockholm, spending 400 percent more time outdoors.
Other cities, such as Vancouver, which was built around a streetcar network in 1886, already have an ideal canvas for promoting neighborliness. “The hyperlocal is the solution to social resilience,” says Scot Hein, a professor at the University of British Columbia and a former urban planner for Vancouver City Hall. Mr. Hein envisions the city as being made up of 120 “community watersheds,” areas each containing a school, co-educational housing, and a commercial zone for shops and jobs.
Policymakers around the world are increasingly supporting the hyperlocal approach. In June, UN Habitat, which focuses on sustainable urban development, launched the Global Observatory of Sustainable Proximities to promote this urban planning model, describing it as “an important factor capable of promoting human well-being and effective climate action.”
Back in Paris, authorities voted in June for a new Local Urban Plan that included a slew of measures aimed at strengthening neighbourhoods, making it easier to open local businesses, placing more restrictions on short-term vacation rentals and banning “dark shops.” closed-off e-commerce delivery hubs, critics say do not provide any benefits to local residents. The city’s Resilience Strategy report last year said encouraging “neighbors to occupy and animate public spaces” could help “turn the challenges of the century into opportunities.”
“Paris has made proximity the norm, even when there is a change of mayor,” said Carlos Moreno, the Paris-based professor behind the concept of the 15-minute city, who has advised cities as diverse as Medellín, Colombia and Dakar. Senegal. “This allows the land to be regenerated on three levels: ecological, economic and social.”
The Republic of Super Neighbors Talking Cheese event highlights the surprising wealth of knowledge that can be found in a neighborhood. Mr Dard, a fact-checking and verification expert working for French TV channel TF1, spoke at an event about the phenomenon of fake news, and earlier a neighbor spoke about working as a magistrate in a criminal court. Soon an astrophysicist will talk about black holes.
“It’s absolutely wonderful here,” said Mr. Dard, whose neighbors recently babysat his cats and water his plants while he’s on vacation. “The atmosphere is unique.”
Marie-Bénédicte Loze, 37, a charity worker who moved to the area last year, lost her wallet a few months ago, but it was returned completely intact by a neighbor. “The solidarity in this neighborhood is wonderful,” she said. “That’s not always the case in a city.”
But the group has loftier goals, including health, mobility and climate. By encouraging residents to invest emotionally and physically in the public space they live in, Mr. Bernard argues, they are less likely to drop litter or cigarette butts, reducing cleaning costs.
“Sociability is an economic actor,” he said.
In collaboration with the non-profit organization Les Alchimistes, the group has installed several compost bins in the neighborhood. They are used by 800 Super Neighbors and process 60 tons of organic waste annually, of which an abnormally high percentage of 98 percent is landfilled correctly. The project is so successful that City Hall has pledged to spend 31,000 euros (or about $34,000) to install eight more.
With support from the city’s Participatory Budget, which allows citizens to vote on municipal spending, the Republic of Super Neighbors has already revitalized a forgotten public square into a vibrant event space, and is applying for funding to purchase communal chargers for e-bikes and an electric cargo bike with which residents can transport goods locally. In the future, the group hopes to open a medical center tailored to local needs.
Looking further, the group is investigating ways in which this can be done The vision of cities shaped in the image of and driven by the bonds between their inhabitants can be replicated and scaled. It believes the answer lies in creating trained and paid roles – so-called Friends of the Neighborhood – to coordinate each district.
“People have started to listen,” said Mr. Bernard. “Everyone wants their neighborhood to be like ours. Now we need to discover how to make our approach more systemic and adapt it to the different challenges and contexts faced by every city in the world.”
