In search of the user

If there is one master narrative about the postwar European city, it is most likely that of the high hopes and ultimate failures of modern urbanism. This evolution has come to be understood as a logical consequence of its authoritarian denial of user needs. Caught up in rhetoric and critique, the history of this "banal modernism" has meanwhile remained remarkably overlooked. Focusing on French mass housing estates and new towns, this dissertation examines the development of modern urbanism and its mounting criticisms through the lens of what turns out to be a shared concern: the user. Under the influence of an expanding welfare state and a rising consumer culture during France's postwar decades of unprecedented economic and urban growth, the user became an increasingly central question in the organization of everyday life. The study reveals how modern urbanism was shaped by and actively shaped this development, in which the user shifted from a standard, passive beneficiary of public services to an active participant and demanding consumer. The dissertation argues that French urbanism evolved as an experimental process in which the realms of production and consumption were in continual interaction. Amongst the cultures of urban expertise, the domain of sociology became a central mediator in this process.