'Era of gigantism is over': why Paris chose banlieue for its Olympic Village

Residents and mayors of once-neglected northern outskirts predict lasting change as area is already focus of regeneration Houdia looked out over the River Seine from her run-down social-housing building in Saint-Ouen, north of Paris. A few hundred metres from her subsiding block of flats, behind a secure fence, stood the glittering new buildings of the Olympic Village, which were completed last week and will now be furnished to accommodate more than 14,000 athletes for this year's Paris Olympic ...