Olivier Ratouis

Olivier Ratouis is professor at Paris Nanterre University and a member of the UMR CNRS Lavue laboratory. Historian and philosopher, he teaches urban planning at the Department of Geography and Planning. His recent work focuses on a critical analysis of vocabulary (The words of urban planners, 2019) and models of urbanism (Standardized cities, 2019). He was the initiator and editor of the extensive book, Bordeaux et ses banlieus, la construction d’une agglomeration (2013, 606 p.) on the historical development of Bordeaux and its suburbs into a metropolitan area.

Find more information on professor Ratouis’ work here and here.

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Looking back to urban future. Everyday life and the city.

By Olivier Ratouis

The history of urban planning offers a very specific angle for questioning everyday life. Since the advent of major cities from the late nineteenth century, everyday life seems to have changed fundamentally. Everything is there: the crowd, cars, department stores. But this is not quite the perspective of urban planners who must project the future and integrate future changes, expected at least for the duration of the plans.