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Marne-la-Vallée is a new French town located east of Paris, in
the Île-de-France region, on the left (south) bank of the Marne.
The new city developed from the 1960s, when the first master
plan for land use planning and town planning (SDAU) was developed,
entrusted to Paul Delouvrier, delegate general for the District of
the Paris region from 1961 to 1969, which was therefore considered
the father of new towns in France.
In 2016, it had a total of
316,171 inhabitants over 171.24 km2, for an average density of 1,846
inhabitants / km2. Relatively large, it stretches over twenty
kilometers from west to east (from Bry-sur-Marne to
Bailly-Romainvilliers), i.e. before the extension of the
intervention perimeter of public development establishments carried
out in 2017. First organized into four sectors, the different
municipalities that make up Marne-la-Vallée then grouped together
into different inter-municipal authorities (see the Composition
section below).
Its inhabitants are called the Marnovallians.
In the 1960s, to cope with the rapid development of
the Parisian agglomeration, it was decided to control its
development by creating several new towns around Paris. The
development of the first master plan for land use planning and
development (SDAU) was entrusted to Paul Delouvrier, delegate
general for the District of the Paris region from 1961 to 1969, who
was therefore considered to be the father of new towns in France.
To the east of Paris, the choice of development fell on the
valley of the south bank of the Marne made up of small villages and
hamlets, very little urbanized at the time, and which therefore had
large land reserves that were easily mobilized. . Unlike other new
towns, such as Cergy-Pontoise or Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines,
Marne-la-Vallée will not be organized around a single urban center
created from scratch, but rather around many urban centers, linked
by the RER and the A4 motorway, the two major axes of the new town.
This layout model is inspired by the new Swedish towns, built in the
suburbs of Stockholm, and offers real advantages in terms of urban
density and transport.
For practical and logical reasons,
urbanization was decided from west to east, on the basis of four
development sectors: Porte de Paris, Val Maubués, Val de Bussy, Val
d'Europe. The oldest districts of the new city are therefore located
in sectors 1 and 2 (Porte de Paris and Val Maubués) around the
existing city centers. Their development is now almost complete.
Sectors 3 and 4 are currently booming and in full urbanization.
Since the extension of Epamarne's scope of intervention, certain
sectors of the new town have seen their names changed: sector 1
Porte de Paris has become Métropole du Grand Paris, Val Maubués is
Paris-Vallée de la Marne, Val de Bussy is Marne-et-Gondoire.