16

During the 1970s, the building of new towns in the Paris region prompted the developers of these “new urban centres” to use new promotional techniques that were sometimes very innovative. In Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, a comic book was published in 1975 to advertise the city. Commissioned by the public urban development company and intended for both residents and private investors, this comic book was published in the French press and presented a narrative tinted with modernism and utopianism. It described the new town as the exact opposite of suburban life at the time, angering certain local officials – notably those from the communist party. Two grammars of the city face off, two families of “words of the city”; two value systems and two political viewpoints.