Marseilles: relecture of city-port interface as a dwelling place
In literature on the city-port dialogue, dwelling does not appear as a central concern. In Marseilles, the port momentum and urban renewal (including the Euroméditerranée Project) draw up along the eastern basins of the "Grand Port Maritime" a heterogeneous interface. From the point of view of associations, we wanted to question how the presence of a port is experienced on the land-side. The collected data demonstrate how the living environment is perceived through nuisances and risks, fears and lack of recognition of inhabitants. Investigating city-port interface as a living place also reveals how neighbourhoods depend on strategic harbour or urban projects out of touch with populations’ needs and experiences. The term of back-port neighbourhood, often used, sounds like being pushed aside or relagated. The associations seek to redefine the meaning of either urban or port development projects. Places to live and atmospheres become then objects of fights through which the question of co-existence and of a "right to dwelling" arises.