| Summary: | Since the early 2000s, social housing production in France has become increasingly more expensive: both land prices and construction costs have increased. At the same time, the State has considerably reduced the direct subsidies granted to each new development. However, the number of new social dwellings has increased significantly and lastingly. While 46,000 dwellings were produced in 2000, more than 100,000 have been produced each year since 2006.This thesis explores this apparent paradox by analyzing the evolution of the institutional organization of the French social housing production system. To do so, it relies on the processing of statistical data as well as on a survey carried out among local housing decision makers in the urban areas of Bordeaux and Boulogne-sur-Mer, and in the Val-de-Bièvre, a gathering of municipalities located south of Paris. An original theoretical framework is used, which combines regulation theory with the results of research focusing on the actors of urban production. This allows for the underlining of the fact that a set of political decisions, local adjustments and coordination mechanisms were articulated in a novel way throughout the decade. In particular, those seek to ensure that social housing organizations use their financial reserves for the production of new dwellings, that new social dwellings are unevenly distributed in space, and that access to land for social housing is reorganized. However, this system appears to depend on real estate markets and for-profit operators; it also participates in redefining the beneficiaries of public intervention in France.
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