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[Kristof]

French urban experiment offers a solution
By Adam Jones in Val d'Europe
Published: November 22 2005 02:00 | Last updated: November 22 2005 02:00

While French cities reflect on the causes of recent rioting, Val d'Europe shines.

 
The new town, which rises amid the fields that separate the brie-making centre of Meaux from Paris, has been in construction for less than a decade and drawn far less attention than the Disneyland resort around which it is built. Now, however, the riots in France's poorer, blighted suburbs have underscored the development's experimental nature.

The boldness of the project is not in its architecture, at least not in the residential buildings, which are a conservative array of traditional-looking houses and apartments designed to reassure rather than challenge.

Val d'Europe is notable, rather, for being a rare European example of urban development through a partnership between the public and private sectors.

As part of the 1987 deal that allowed the creation of the tourist attraction, Euro Disney, the resort's developer, secured the right to develop 2,000 hectares of land. Euro Disney drew up a master plan with central government and local authorities and began to sell or lease the land in the 1990s, overseeing the architecture of each development.

Rather than being an entirely new town, Val d'Europe is an expansion of five villages ringing Disneyland Paris. Now, with more than half of the town complete, 20,000 people live in Val d'Europe. The aim is for another 20,000 people to move in by 2020.

Aside from making money, Val d'Europe had two main aims: firstly, to create a local economy robust enough to avoid the joblessness that destabilised the housing projects constructed after the second world war; secondly, to create an urban landscape that aged better than the crumbling blocks and towers in nearby, riot-torn housing estates.

With Disneyland Paris as an economic anchor, the town is off to a good start. Overall, says Jean-Paul Balcou, president of the body that represents the new town's five settlements, unemployment runs at about 3 per cent, compared with 9.8 per cent nationally. In one settlement, a quarter of the 4,000 inhabitants work at Disneyland.

Yet Euro Disney's history of financial fragility makes it important to attract other employers. Mr Balcou believes the theme park is here to stay, but says the area cannot be too dependent on any one industry: "My ambition is to diversify."

A vast shopping mall flanked by another retail village selling discounted designer clothes already provides an alternative source of jobs. Arlington Securities, the UK property group, is developing a business park too.

In the past five years, residential property prices in Val d'Europe have risen 30-40 per cent, says Jacqueline Boyer of Fontenoy Immobilier estate agency. A 60 sq m, two-bedroom flat sells for about €200,000 ($235,600, £137,000).

Ms Boyer says the Euro Disney involvement "is a form of security" for buyers, many of whom migrate from Paris's less affordable western suburbs. Outside the theme park and mall, however, there are no Mickey Mouses smiling down on citizens. This is an unbranded town.

Nor has Euro Disney - partly owned by Walt Disney, the US entertainment group - tried to clone Celebration, the slice of idealised small-town America that Walt Disney developed in Florida.

There are times when Val d'Europe's architecture hints at Main Street USA, but the town is a muted mix of styles.

The prevailing tone of the showpiece Place d'Ariane - a broad public space in front of one of the two railways stations - is 19th-century Paris, although the central brasserie resembles little more than a giant, brass-handled toilet plunger.

To relieve the gloom that settles on the Marne in winter, homes are painted in light colours.

Gated communal gardens are plentiful; graffiti is minimal, however.

Dominique Cocquet, Euro Disney's senior vice-president for development and external relations, says Val d'Europe needed a solid style of architecture to anchor the theme park's flights of fancy.

Yet he denies that the town's developers are "prisoners of tradition", pointing out that schools and other public buildings are more contemporary and adventurous in style: "Our objective was not to be conservative, it was to make things that could last without going out of fashion."

Although it is too early to judge the longevity of its own public-private collaboration, Euro Disney believes its closeness to the consumer has helped to make Val d'Europe a place that reflects the desires of residents rather than architects.

"The big attempts at development by the state - they have had problems because they don't have this proximity to the people," it says.
 
 
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/366c9102-5b4c- ... e2340.html

[Anthony]

Yay!  Go Val d'Europe!  =D>

A 60 sq m, two-bedroom flat sells for about €200,000 ($235,600, £137,000).

I'd better get saving then...  :lol: