Mass Transportation in the Neoliberal City: The Mobilizing Myths of the Grand Paris Express

Abstract

This paper examines the discourses of transportation and mobility surrounding the Grand Paris Express mass transit network announced in January 2011 as part of the broader Grand Paris urban renewal and agglomeration initiative. It argues that though Grand Paris Express has the potential to symbolically unify the Île-de-France region, and may provide much needed infrastructure to the peripheral suburbs of Paris, because of the neoliberal political rationality upon which it is based, it may likely entrench rather than relieve the problems of territorial inequality it sets out to address. An important tool of gentrification, mass transit is being used in metropolitan Paris to lead urban development in the creation of a polycentric region with functionally differentiated clusters of industry, finance, and technology around proposed transit stations. Following four main ‘mobilizing myths’ that dominate public policy debates, the proposed Grand Paris Express system fails to consider the broad social, economic, and political conditions upon which urban mobility is based, instead orienting transit toward a marketized logic of real estate development, urban rent production, and territorial competition.