Disappearing Levallois: The Rue Marjolin

Few places around Paris have seen as much demolition and construction as Levallois in recent years. The previously working-class town, considered once to be suitably welcoming by arch-revolutionary Louise Michel (who also chose to be buried in the town), and also under the control of Communist mayor Parfait Jans (once a taxi driver) until 1983, is now reinventing itself as a bourgeois dormitory town with the identity of a dreary pastiche ville nouvelle.

For a once radical town, opposition to this ripping out of its own heart seems surprisingly muted. The factories that once employed people in their thousands were pulled down several years ago, but now the local authorities seem intent on removing all traces of this industrial era, notably by demolishing the buildings that housed these workers. Nowhere is this more evident than on a stretch of the Rue Marjolin, where a dozen or so buildings are scheduled to be pulled down this year.

The buildings themselves may not be of the highest quality, but they also have an identity that clearly does not fit into the new town model. Compulsory purchase orders have been slapped on all properties in this stretch of the street, but apparently at rates that are below the market level in the town, meaning that property owners here will need to look outside of Levallois to purchase something of a similar size.

The local authorities say that the new structures that will take their place will be majoritarily social housing, and that they need to undertake this development in order to meet a 20% target for such housing in the town, but is this the most judicious way to work with urban areas such as this one? Estimates suggest that the operation will cost around €20 million, with around half that sum earmarked for the purchasing of properties and their demolition, but surely renovation would have been more economically and environmentally sensible?

Beyond the elimination of the town's previous identity, there are clearly human dramas being played out here too. One of the buildings in this strip is a small townhouse, built at the time of the town's birth in 1850, and one of the only remaining social links back to this era. Inside lives an 87 year old lady, a resistant who was deported to Germany during the Second World War, before later finding shelter back in Levallois. "This house may be modest" says a sign outside, "but many would love to live here". This lady simply wants to remain in a town where her husband is buried, but at current market rates it seems that this will be unlikely.

"A society that forgets and disowns its past and history, and which does not respect its elders, is a society without a future" says another sign outside the house. This is seemingly the only protest in this street, and a message falling on very deaf ears. Each building in the strip is different, each has its own size, shape and features, but all will surely be replaced by one block of fake marble blandness, the standard model today mushrooming across the town.

This was clearly once at the heart of the old town, a narrow street of cheap lodgings and commerces de bouche. Only one of these - a rusting and crumbling butchers shop - is still visible, but its fascinating facade is surely simply destined only for the incinerator.

Levallois is a town without a museum, and seemingly also a place that feels no need to display any traces of its past. It's the classic tale of the nouveau riche with a deep feeling of shame about its unprosperous ancestors.

But as the streets are scrubbed clean, and smooth, shiny, soulless buildings replace the lived in with their ragged facades and generations of simple histories, what will the town gain? Surely anything but an identity.