Paper short abstract:

Urban utopias and social practices in a “New city” in the north of France

Paper long abstract:

Villeneuve d'Ascq is a "new city" that arose in the 70th because of the decision of the French government. It was the time of urban utopias when urban planers expected to build "cities at the countryside". The aim of this presentation is to interrogate the reality of this utopia in the frame of the decrease of the local and social solidarities. Nowadays, people remember the important place of the neighbourhood linkages: a lot of services, of foods and of material were supposed to be exchange in order to maintain mutual solidarity. Today is an other time : individualism seems to be the principal feature of the neighbourhood.

But is the reality so binary ? We propose to consider that local exchanges exist when they respond to a collective aspiration. Therefore the anthropologist's goal is to document those aspirations. Our assumption is that aspirations for a more friendly life and for more free exchanges hasn't disappear, but they have to be search elsewhere. For example in the virtual space. Social solidarity hasn't disappear, it moves.