Researcher(s):
Drew Williamson
ENVS course(s): 400, 499 Initiated: January 2016 Completed: April 2017 Go to project site
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In this essay, I explore the city of Strasbourg, France and efforts the city has made to boost its standing on the global scale while also seeking to provide a higher quality of life for its inhabitants at the local level. To better understand the purposes and constituencies that have been served by the city’s efforts in urbanism, I invoke relevant concepts and frameworks of global (world) city theory; urban amenities; city branding and place promotion; and social implications of transportation infrastructure situated on a singular object—Strasbourg’s tramway system. Despite the city’s relatively obscure status, it plays a key role in global power structures, being home to multiple international organizations, most notably the European Union Parliament. Starting in 1989, the city’s government undertook radical, concerted action to improve local environmental conditions by constructing a tram network and banning most cars from the entire historic downtown to “return the city to its people.” Though highly contentious at first, in the twenty years up to today, the tram has rapidly reshaped life and how individual residents identify themselves and how they see the collective identity of Strasbourg; correspondingly, the city’s global importance has grown as a present-day example of high quality urbanism stemming from its ‘world class’ tram network.
I argue that Strasbourg’s choice to (re)-create public space by radical implementation of the tramway has been a tool for incorporating the city's global and local aspirations, creating a new mode of being on an individual basis, and a new identity for the city's residents, as well as for the city itself. This natural evolution has enhanced the meaning of the tram and how it is able to be communicated to the citizens and the rest of the world.
My guiding question asks "what purposes and constituencies does light rail serve in aspiring world-class cities?"
My researchable questions to answer were:
• How has discourse among various constituencies (govt, public) evolved to shape the perceptions of Strasbourg’s tram?
• How has Strasbourg’s choice to build the tramway been a tool for incorporating both global and local aspirations of the city?
This paper is largely a historical analysis, which used a variety of qualitative methodologies in order to develop a timeline of key actors and events in the tram’s development, and to better understand how the tram has been perceived between the mid/late 1980’s up to today. Much of the data used to construct this chronological storyline was obtained by searching for Strasbourg-local newspaper articles relevant to the tram. Other methodologies involved an extensive review of existing literature including French legal frameworks related to transport, energy, and urban planning; national and international newspapers; and local government publications such as transportation planning documents. I also conducted formal and informal interviews with various residents and key actors in the city of Strasbourg while I was there to better understand the local perspectives.