Growing out of NIMBY? The uneven emergence of contentious coalitions in land-use conflicts across the Paris metropolis

Abstract

This article examines the coalitions underpinning opposition to housing development across the Paris metropolitan area. Drawing on a database of 141 housing-related development conflicts (2017–2022), compiled through local press analysis and socio-spatial mapping, it analyzes how local mobilizations are distributed across the metropolitan territory and which actors participate in them. The findings reveal a highly fragmented landscape of contention. Most conflicts are driven by ultra-local coalitions linking neighborhood groups and local political actors, predominantly concentrated in socially mixed middle-class areas. Broader environmental coalitions do emerge, but they remain socially and spatially selective, concentrated in upper- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods endowed with greater symbolic and cultural resources. By articulating coalition-building processes with the socio-spatial characteristics of neighborhoods, the article demonstrates that the capacity of local mobilizations to connect with wider actors is unevenly distributed and shaped by metropolitan inequalities. It shows that territorially bounded struggles must be situated within metropolitan-scale patterns of mobilization. These findings also point to the need for greater analytical attention to the articulation between relational and territorial forms of structuring in contemporary land-use conflicts.