Season 2 Episode 4 - BOBOLAND! (GENTRIFICATION)

Bobo means bourgeois-bohème; a left leaning, culture loving elite. Kind of the French version of the hipster. Someone of or joining a more comfortable class who likes to dabble in the cultural spaces of the working class and/or ethnic groups. The bobo like the hipster is the boogieman of gentrification. No one wants to be bobo and yet we see them everywhere. And with their presence goes the neighborhoods we knew. This episode will be dispatches from and on the edge of Boboland.

Script

Jess 0:02

This is Here There Be Dragons. I'm your host Jess Myers.

During the last episode on communautarisme we ended wondering whether gentrification was a way to bring about mixité and how it affects local communities. If you haven't already, I recommend you listen to the last two episodes before you start this one.

There are a few words for gentrification in French, one of the most obvious being gentrification but there's also the word embourgeoisement, which is the process of a neighborhood changing from popular to bourgeois, a bourgeois or a bourge can be a number of things, someone who's middle class or higher, someone who's elite, someone who's highly educated, someone who has more power than the working class. None of these markers mean that being bourgeois is bad, but it can mean that their needs and wants get more attention than working class people who have much less social and political power.

Historically, and politically, they've often been opposed to social reform movements led by populaire communities. Historically, Paris has had a lot of populaire neighborhoods made up of factory workers, independent skilled workers and small businesses. They were areas where people mostly worked in metallurgy, another where they made furniture, there were car factories and workshops, tailors and shoe repairs. They lived in small simple buildings on crooked streets and socialized in lively cafes. The deindustrialization of Paris and its surrounding banlieues happened mostly during the second half of the 20th century, as the manufacturing industry in France declined. As a result, many of these formerly populaire areas emptied out.

Soon after a much-hated character appeared, Le Bobo. Bobo means bourgeois-bohème, a left leaning, culture loving elite. Kind of the French version of the hipster. Someone of or joining a more comfortable class who likes to dabble in the cultural spaces of the working class and or ethnic groups. The Bobo, like the hipster, is the boogeyman of gentrification. No one wants to be Bobo, and yet we see them everywhere. And with their presence goes the neighborhoods we once knew. This episode will be dispatches from the edge of Boboland.

For years, the 19th has been a populaire arrondissement cut through by two industrial canals, the Canal de l'Ourcq and the Canal Saint-Denis. In the 20th century, the neighborhood was dotted with canneries, hat makers and carpentry shops processing a steady flow of goods. As these industries moved out of the city. The neighborhood became the home of many different immigrant groups, but Alice who moved to the neighborhood in the early 2000s, when she was in her mid-20s sees how the neighborhood is transitioning.

ALICE 2:39

“Oui Bonjour! D’accord, donc je m'appelle Alice. J'ai 40 ans. Je suis directrice d'études marketing, alors je suis né à paris dans le quinzième arrondissement, le quatrième…”

[Translation]

I like the neighborhood. We're clearly in a populaire neighborhood. So they're the HLM towers just next door. We're not far from the canal. It's extremely Bobo. It's clear. It's really a boboland. We went to get a coffee yesterday and ended up in a cafe where everyone was well put together. They have little beards, little plaid shirts, Perrier is four euros.

I don’t feel very comfortable in places like that. There's no diversity. And I love this area because it has a form of diversity. It's mixed. There's actually a large Jewish community, a large Asian community, and then a major North Saharan community, Sub-Saharan too. And then there are Europeans, I mean, Caucasian, oh, my God, all of us live well together, and I like it.  The fact that there aren't restaurants that serve little tomato consommé, and confit, and there are also cafes, where you can drink the coffee for one euro.

So do I like this neighborhood? Yes, I love it. It suits me. That's how I like to live. I had a friend who lived just near the canal, where I couldn't do it. To me this is a sign of what Paris is becoming. It's becoming a city of rich people. Who are pushing people who don't have the means out, because of the extremely high rents. When we're all living with people who earn more than 4000 euros a month. I don't know what we’ll have won. We’ll be disconnected from a certain form of reality. The reality is that the neighborhood I live in, is still a bit of a rough area with lots of idle youth who have no jobs. Who spend their days on the street, waiting for something to happen.

“…avec pas mal de jeunes désoeuvrés qui n’ont pas de boulot, qui passent leurs journées dans la rue à attendre que ça se passe…”

Jess 4:22

Bernard, a 64-year-old psychologists living in the eastern banlieue Montreuil witnessed a similar change in his old neighborhood the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.

BERNARD 4:32 

“Le Faubourg Saint Antoine à l'époque c'etait encore un quartier très populaire.”

[Translation]

The Faubourg Saint Antoine, at the time was still a very populaire area. In our building, there was another family, what we called old ‘Titi Parisians’. A Parisian working class family who were on the same floor as us in the building.

Besides that, there was an apartment, that was a dorm where there were a dozen Tunisians and bunk beds. There were Algerians, below us there were Africans from black Africa, we became great friends with them, they were from Mali. There were Yugoslavs, Portuguese, Spanish. It was a very populaire building. And it was a neighborhood where they manufactured furniture since the 17th century.

Gradually, this neighborhood was emptied of its working classes during the construction of the Bastille Opera House, which is hideous, by the way, but whatever. And suddenly the price per square meter started climbing, and our neighbors said to us one day, “you know, I'm going to sell my apartment”, and then he told us the price. So I broke out laughing and said, “you'll never sell your apartment at that price”. And he said, “well, yeah, that is the price I sold it at” which seemed crazy.

I didn't really understand that the neighborhood was changing. And it happened very, very quickly. The architecture hasn't changed. The buildings were even well maintained by the population. It's a population of bourgeois, that's clear, international artists, physicians, surgeons, lawyers. I saw galleries where there were small traditional shops, a vegetable vendor, a butcher, in the span of two to three years, all these small shops disappeared. They've been replaced by art galleries. It was laughable, you couldn't find a bakery, butcher, a grocery store, anywhere. But there were six or seven art galleries next to each other. Amazing. Amazing.

“Etonnant, étonnant.”

Jess 6:05

Like Alice and Bernard, Anne moved to Montreuil, a fast-gentrifying banlieue before it started changing. As a student she was looking for an affordable place and ending up liking the neighborhood. 

ALICE 6:16

“Alors nous quand on quand on s’installe à Montreuil au milieu des années 80…”

[Translation]

When we moved to Montreuil in the mid 80s, Montreuil was still very populaire. With several populaire generations and a long-standing history of immigration. There were migrants who were very settled in the city. Montreuil was a point of welcome for Italian migrants. There are a number of little Italy's in Montreuil. And after that, there were waves of Portuguese migrants. And then after in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It was mainly migrants from the Maghreb, and then mostly migrants from Sub Saharan Africa. It is said that Montreuil was the second largest Malian city.

Montreuil is also a city that has a very strong history. Look at the immigrant worker hostels, there was a well-known hostile strike in the 80s. When we moved there in the 80s, the city looked like that. There wasn't a lot of gentrification yet. It was our student friends who were there, and people who are born in the city. There wasn't this movement that we now call gentrification.

When we moved into the city, we were really one of the first families to come with this movement in the southern part of Montreuil. The northern neighborhoods are still populaire neighborhoods.  This gentrification risks being done in favor of a certain population, the more creative class, they're the winners. And the risk is. that the most populaire classes and above all, the migrant class, the more fragile population, are the losers. I'm thinking of African demographics. There's a reversal of where the resources are. And suddenly there's the risk of a new form of colony.  

“…risque d'une nouvelle forme de colonie.”

Jess 8:03

Adélie struggles with the idea of bobos and gentrifiers because like Anne she once lived in a working-class neighborhood since as a student that’s what she could afford. But as a journalist she sees herself as someone who won’t make as much money as her parents, and so the story of the upwardly mobile bobo isn’t true for her, like it isn’t true for many of her peers.

ADÉLIE 8:30

“…je gentrifie parce que je suis blanche que je viens d’un milieu bourgeois…”

[Translation]

I gentrify because I'm white and I come from a bourgeois background. But my purchasing power isn’t going to change things. My purchasing power is really limited to my 6pm beer and I'm not in a profession where I could potentially earn hundreds of thousands. I’m aware that my presence in the neighborhood contributes to changing spaces that belonged to other people, and who had other cultures. It's important to think to what extent you integrate yourself or not in this kind of neighborhood.

I think it’s important to be nuanced about the people who are coming in. It’s clear that there’s a population, coming from relatively affluent social class, most often white. It’s really the generation above us, those who are 30- to 40-year-olds. And who have a higher purchasing power, they can put their kids in private school, and they don’t have to put them in public school with the children of immigrants for example.

After that you have a whole other category of people coming, who’s also rather white, to which I kind of belong, you could call them precarious intellectual class. Your cultural capita is pretty high since you’ve gone through higher education, but you’re not rich at all and you don’t expect to be. So, there’s also this interesting debate today in France around the concept of "bobo". Because "bobo" it tends to include everyone in the same package right, and while I probably have a “bobo” way of life, in economic terms that’s not me.

“…mais en termes économiques ce n'est pas moi.”

Jess 10:10

As Adélie says the word Bobo is an easy concept that hides very different realities. For the first wave of higher income people moving into populaire neighborhoods. It was either a political act or simply a financial choice as housing in the inner city became more and more expensive. For students, it's an obvious choice. But as people stay and their economic and political influence grows, more affluent newcomers arrive, and the benefits for the middle- and upper-class increase. These changes can lead to a shift in what kinds of people hang out in the neighborhood, in turn that can lead to new or even uncomfortable interactions. Esther talks about Saint-Denis a banlieue at the northern edge of Paris that's currently very populaire but is gentrifying quickly.

ESTHER 10:55

“…par exemple vers Saint-Denis…”

[Translation]

Saint-Denis is kind of the place to be. Lots of young people, lots of trendy restaurants. Just a few years ago, it had prostitutes on the street. It's something that happens fairly quickly. Sometimes both coexist, there are still prostitutes elsewhere in Saint-Denis. But at the same time, you have bars, restaurants, and neo-bistros. I tend to follow gentrification. I'm not avant-garde. I don't know it's probably due to safety mainly, and not at all because of social racism. On the contrary, it's more of the idea that at least I know, I won't get pickpocketed.

“…je sais que…”

FRANCK 11:28

[Translation]

What's interesting is that we're not cleansing the city. It's the city that's changing that's evolving. 10 years ago, I had a friend who lived near Gare de l'Est, and I wasn't very comfortable going there. Today, it's much better. And oddly enough, now my Parisian friends told me, no, that's not Paris anymore. And they go to places that are in the 20th and the 19th, places I wouldn't go very often. The first time I went, there were men who are commenting on the people going by saying look at those Bobo's, look who's coming to fuck around there, to come here slumming.

“…oh regarde ces bobos, oh regarde, qu’est-ce qui viennent foutre là, ah bah y viennent s’encanailler.”

ALISON 12:05

I've been here near the rue faubourg St. Denis since 2008. Even though I've only been there less than ten years I feel nostalgic for what it was like when I came. For instance, the café opposite, at Chez Janette's Café, that was run by two old ladies and it closed at 9pm and it was just like the most wonderful characterful old café and the people that you'd meet in there. The day I signed and moved into my flat there were these good-looking young guys behind the bar and they actually handed me a glass of champagne and said you're our first customer. So it was like literally happening as I moved in and that's become very much the center of the whole kind of hipster gentrification that's happening here.

Jess 12:50

Gentrifiers often argue that they're the ones creating mixité in lower class neighborhoods, but economic pressures ensure that this mix isn't sustainable. You might remember a Paris university professor Sylvie Tissot from the mixité episode. For Professor Tissot there's an element of control underneath the argument for gentrification. She says: “we like social mixité, but the stakes are in controlling the proportion and defining the mix. By claiming this social mix, it's not just talk, it's also constructing a certain authority and a certain power over the neighborhood.”

Even if it isn't intentional Bobo's end up changing a neighborhoods entire identity in Paris, because of the Affordable Housing laws we talked about in earlier episodes. Gentrification isn't as fast as it is in the US, low income tenants don't get pushed out as quickly. But the resources that once supported them, like affordable local amenities, slowly dry up.

LÉOPOLD 13:52

Gentrification is not just about people actually coming to live in a neighborhood, it's people and their economic means, and their way of life, what’s the sort of commerce they like to patronize. I think the process we're seeing in Paris is something that needs years, if not decades, to really replace the population that originally lived in this, in this space. We should be very careful about the way it's operating.

SAMIA 14:22

“…la mixité elle est essentielle…”

[Translation]

Peacefully living together and mixité are essential. The poor can't live to one side. Why is there a district where housing is very expensive, and another where it’s cheap? When people want to find housing in Paris, when they have the means, they go to the 7th arrondissement, and when they lack the means they have to go to the 20th arrondissement.

“…quand ils ont pas les moyens ils vont dans le 20e arrondissement.”

Jess 14:41

As cafes, bars and shops begin reflecting the tastes of new tenants. Oftentimes, the higher cost of living is much more than longer term tenants are used to. But another class of Bobo that we haven't talked about yet is also attracted to these places. For upwardly mobile people of color, some who grew up in the banlieue, gentrification allows them to see their whole identity in one place. It unites both the places they want to hang out in, and the people that they grew up with. For them, this mixité is valuable, even if it is fleeting.

JENNIFER 15:15

“Le 10ème qui était très très populaire y a dix ans…”

[Translation]

The 10th which was very popular a decade ago, today you can’t recognize it at all, it has totally changed, it's overpriced. I think that’s where the future’s at play in Paris, it’s precisely the place where we could have a mix of generations, the social mix, this mixture that actually gets back to what’s going on politically in France, that actually we’re divided, because we don’t have the same religion, because we don’t come from the same neighborhood because blah blah. I think that’s where we could make the difference by trying to keep these neighborhoods where people are really in a mix, where people aren’t afraid to say to themselves, we live in the same neighborhood and it’s fine, even if we’re not from the same place. That could seem a little utopian but it’s not at all because it worked back in the day in the banlieue and so why couldn’t it work now.

“…en banlieue et pourquoi ça fonctionnerait plus.”

Jess 16:04

Gentrification in big American cities is not the same as gentrification in Paris, mainly because at the government level, there's much more of a desire to build and protect affordable housing as well as preserve historic structures. But the symbols of change can lead to anxiety about the future of the neighborhood, even if that future is still distant.

MAWENA 16:24

“En fait à Paris ça a toujours été éclaté…”

[Translation]

Paris was always divided. Like the Marais, went from a neighborhood of tailors to a boutique neighborhood. It went from a Jewish neighborhood to a gay neighborhood, but it's still a Jewish neighborhood there are still Jewish families. There isn’t this gentrification phenomena where you push out the residents, you change the businesses because people evolve and adapt to their time.  It’s a bit paradoxical like when people say that  Montreuil was the place to be, but it’s always has always been a bastion where students went because it's cheaper. I'm not an urbanist.

What I'm telling you is obviously a simplistic point of view. But I feel like we're afraid of gentrification in France for nothing, because it just doesn't work the same way.  You've got lots of people working in the 13th who live in the 18th, people studying in the fifth who live in the 20th. I think there's real circulation in Paris.

“…je trouve que y a une vraie circulation dans Paris quand même.”

Jess 17:22

A crucial point that Mawena brings up, is the way that gentrification is seen in Paris. The difference between where people live and where they're seen hanging out. In neighborhoods like the 10th arrondissement, the Marais, the Bastille there's still traces of old communities protected from rising rent by public intervention. What does bar certain communities from the neighborhood might be the rising cost or disappearance of neighborhood amenities like grocery stores and cafes, like in Bernard’s Faubourg Saint Antoine.  But economic power isn't the only thing that might make a person feel welcome or unwelcome in any given neighborhood. Next episode, we'll be talking a little bit more about that theme. What are the social codes that make Parisians feel welcome or shut out of their city?

Hey everyone, before I go on with the usual thank yous, I wanted to give you a heads up. This is the halfway point of the series. The first four episodes have been pretty policy heavy. To give us the tools to understand the second half, which is much more personal. We'll get a more intimate picture of the residents that I spoke to. At this point, it would be really helpful for you, dear listener, to do a couple things for us. Firstly, your comments are invaluable to me. If you have a response, or a feeling about something you've just heard, let me know by emailing me at htbdpodcast@gmail.com or on Twitter at dragons_podcast. Also, feel free to record yourself commenting and send it to us so we can include those comments in the last episode. The second thing you can do for us, is rate us and review us on iTunes. This way more people can find us in the sea of millions of podcasts that exist on the internet. And lastly, watch out for mini episode extras that will pop up in between the episode posts.

As always, thank you for listening. We really appreciate your ears. And I’d like to say a special thank you to my sponsors at MIT Council for the Arts who made this season possible. Thank you also to Cory Lee Jacobs for the music in this season, check out his trio Octopus 2000 on bandcamp. I’d also like to introduce you to a new member of the team, co-producer Adélie Pojzman-Pontay. You’ll be hearing from her in the episodes to come. Be sure to subscribe and rate us on iTunes, Soundcloud, and Stitcher. If you want to leave us a comment email us at htbdpodcast@gmail.com or follow us on twitter at @dragons_podcast. And lastly, if you joined us last season you’ll know that every interviewee draws their personal maps of safety and danger, check those out on our brand new website htbdpodcast.com where you’ll find a number of treats including a glossary of French terms you may be curious about. Join us every other week for more stories of fear, identity, and urban life.