Come with me to Clamart: a postcard from a Parisian regenerative development that really works

By Nicholas Boys Smith2025-11-12T07:00:00

British regeneration schemes could learn a lot from the Clamart Panorama brownfield development near Paris, says Nicholas Boys Smith – above all the humility to ask people what they really like

Come with me to Clamart, seven miles from Paris. Here is regenerative development in reality not in name.

Up and down Britain, councils, landowners and public bodies write vision statements, talk of regeneration, pay overpriced consultants and architecture firms to create top-down master plans. They perform quasimendacious community engagements which ask every question, apart from the most important one: what places do people like and why.

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