This study was conducted based on the understanding of La Defense’s developmental background, which was formed by two conflicting development policies, one suggesting to redevelop the city as a mixed-use residential area for resolving housing proble...
This study was conducted based on the understanding of La Defense’s developmental background, which was formed by two conflicting development policies, one suggesting to redevelop the city as a mixed-use residential area for resolving housing problems and the other suggesting to redevelop the city as a central business district for supplementing a lack of business function of Paris, creating a sensitive social situation.
Therefore, in this sensitive social situation at the end of the 1950’s, this study will try to make an inference about the essence of inconsistent policies by investigating the process of finance acquisition by the major developer of the area, EPAD (L’Etablissement public pour l’amenagement de la region de La Defense); and to show that the urban function of the current La Defense as a central business district as well as the structure of the city are both affected by these finance policies. For such purposes of this study, the degree of correspondence between the national policy support and the size and characteristics of La Defense’s development was examined by analyzing the structure of financial resources for La Defense’s development.
In addition, this study investigated how finances affected both the urban function and structure of La Defense as a central business district, when the contradictions in the structural aspect of financial resources for the development of La Defense responded more sensitively to an external environment, such as the market economy, resulting in a inconsistent development policy.