Contenu du sommaire : De la polis aux politiques urbaines : renaissance et mutations de la ville grecque contemporaine

How to approach the question of the foundation of Athens as the capital city of the neo-hellenic State in 1834 ? This question is pertinent to the fact that Athens is then a double-faced city : on the one hand, it is a newly built town, hence the image of modernity ; on the other, it is the spatial outcome of historical processes, hence the expression of time continuity or tradition. The second of these two, images tainted with ideology, does not supersede the first one. Rather, it confirms its emergence as a new city. Besides being a testing-ground for urbanistic conceptions of the 19th century, Athens is also a place where economy, ideology, urban engineering and State affairs are all interrelated. Thus one can certainly speak of Athens in 1834 as one would of Brasilia in 1964...

The extreme degree of rurality and the lack of proto-industrial bases in 19th century Greece allowed industrial activities to spring in a unique urban pole, the only one providing enough scopes for consumption and employment necessary to induce by-effects.

Transport means and their related technological innovations have played a key role in the economic division and, hence, the social differentiation of Athens and Piraeus, as well as the eastern and western parts of the respective towns. Not only have urban transport means been adapted to this division, but they have helped its reinforcement whilst favouring the supremacy of the centre of Athens. Nowadays, though the use of the private car has a role of decentralisation, it has so far produced limited effects.

The plan of the Pagrati quarter in Athens (1886), was an important extension on an almost uninhabited territory. Its morphology, detrimental to the continuity of form and to the functional characteristics of the city, reveals a strict internal coherence and geometrical organisation. This plan has been profoundly modified through a series of processes of vivification and continuous transformation : its present representation is closely related to the signs of its utilization. Its initial structure however persists despite a functional deviation. Even if it neutralizes the aesthetic values of the initial planning of the city, utilization confirms here morphology, whether favoured or impeded by the latter.

After nearly a century and a half of intensive and uncontrolled urbanisation, hopes to improve the quality of urban life in Athens arise with the setting up of the Urban Development Scheme of 1983. However, excessive centralism and bureaucracy of the Greek State, by impeding the work of institutions, make alterations of the objectives and elaboration procedures necessary at the expense of local democracy.

The urban apartment house building, spatial module of change in the city of Athens, and symptom of the deadlock situation of modern Greek cities, is not solely a housing model. It becomes a model for built-up areas throughout Greece. The aim of this article is to discuss the origin and the evolution of the architectural model of the apartment house building of Athens during two periods : the Inter-War period and the Post-War period. Its typological and morphological particularities are determined by the components of its field of application, namely : the legal setting, land ownership, the exchange process in building operations and the dominant social values.

Unplanned spontaneous urbanisation, outside the limits devoted to urban development, helps to palliate low-class housing production in Athens. The process whereby the areas so-produced are brought under regulations and given legal recognition is a normative means to integrate people and space in capitalist and State relations.

The aim of this paper is to review some aspects of the theoretical foundations of a research carried out from 1979 to 1982 on the utilization of collective equipment in the city -area of Athens. It attempts to formulate appropriate methodological orientation suited to the Greek context in this particular research field. Outcome of earlier research, it equally takes into account recent theoretical findings and points out the specific character of collective equipment utilization in Greece.

The inefficiency of public services in the field of education, both a cause and an effect of the expansion of private services, shows the irresponsibility which caracterises state «policies» as well as the citizens attitudes towards these «policies». The relationship established by each social group with «its own school» brings forth, among other things, the general absence of bonds between the residents and their town, and illustrates several aspects of the question of «the athenian identity».

The aim of this article is to discuss the importance of various factors which account for the evolution of the centre of Athens from 1950 to 1984. During that period, employment and labour markets are involved in a widening and merging process, first at the capital city level, then, at the national level. The provincial head offices gradually move to the capital. The role of large firms and of the State, and their associated activities of control and management, increases in the economy. The central area expands as its activities shift to its starwise extensions. Ground rent increases in the centre till 1977. It then diminishes in the old centre but keeps rising in areas of its recent extension. Government policy in matters of transport and communications has greatly contributed to such an evolution. It has favoured the role of major radial arteries at both national and capital city levels.

The author gives a brief account of the findings of a painstaking survey on the public places of Athens. Their spatial distribution, their morphology, their modes of functionning and of utilization, and, lastly, their social importance are respectively discussed. Despite inheritances so typical of mediterranean sociableness, modern public places in Athens attract more people and traffic.

This article outlines the features of the industrial decentralization process from the capital city to its periphery and analyzes its consequences on spatial organisation and local economic activities. It first describes the economic structure of the established firms and the extent to which it favours the creation of new industrial sites and the reorganisation of older locational areas. It also shows the reorientation of local economic activities as a result of differential capital investments in the Athens region.

The way problems related to traditional sites are tackled depends upon the overall social trend and reflects intervening changes in social relations. These processes determine the consciousness and action of social classes and social groups, their values and finally, their attitude concerning the protection of traditional sites or their integration in an extended urban environment.

In post-war Greece, where the urban phenomenon concerns mainly the development of Athens and partly, of Thessalonica, Ptolémaïs is an original case of urbanisation due mainly to the exploitation of a single natural ressource for electric power production, that is, lignite. The dramatic speed at which within barely thirty-years, rural activités have been replaced by industry and a population increase largely accounted by immigration, set a question on the forms and the mechanisms of such a phenomenon. A small market-town is being transformed into an industrial mining-town. The built-up space is densified and assumes urban characteristics. It is not only an indicator and a consequence of recent demographic changes. It becomes itself a preliminary condition for future demographic and social change at Ptolémaïs.

Stagnant for long or even in demographic and economic decline, the old town of Molyvos is nowadays reawakened by tourism. Its revival entails positive and negative aspects. Hence the need to take steps to stimulate growth and also to adopt control measures.

The development of tourism in Phira leads to economic consequences of declining traditional activities and local cultural heritage. A high degree of dependence on such a seasonal activity makes the problem more acute. Phira is evolving towards a society of multi-cultural convergence where the production of built-up space, mainly for activities of tourism, is a problem of growing concern for both the local inhabitants and the visitors.