This pretty old house is located in a quiet and privileged area of Aix. Soon, however, there will be no trace of the building, the land having been promised to developers. 

With the revision of the PLU (local development plan), the private houses, not classified as historical heritage and possessing a large land are the object of all the lusts. 

The owners are stopped by the builders who buy twice the price, already exorbitant this type of property. 

Far from considering the existing works, the builders have eyes only for the area of the plots that are abstract divided into lots.

While the Aixois medical real estate stock is in full recomposition, it is the effervescence in the countryside. For some this redistribution of patients, the anticipation of future dependent generations is a godsend while for others this movement represents a threat launches a slingshot. In this perspective, the "Friends of the Montaiguet" gathered in July at the Bastide de la Félicité to protest against the planned construction of a Polyclinic in their area.

Over a glass, participants agree on the negative impact of the project. The nuisances are extracted, taken out of the blogs and named one after the other.  The result is an apocalyptic vision of the environment, of the living environment promised by the various partners during the "Montaiguet operation". The rows of trees bordered by fields would be present only part island organized: relegated to the simple roles of extras. The bastides would reappear as headlights for motorists...

Thus, the wave of the Malouesses terrain, its motocross echoes was a beautiful setting for the neighboring properties. Beyond that, the use of the area for mass medical trade symbolizes the ongoing mutation in an area between the Valcros and Pont-de-l'Arc districts. In a way, urbanism invites itself into the backyards and then into the bowels of the properties. If the fight of the "Friends of the Montaiguet" can be objectified as a simple grouping of individuals concerned to maintain an acquired quality of life, their action pushes to question the finality of the urbanization programs in court. The district of Pont-de-l'Arc, recently portrayed in "La Provence" (local newpaper) as an "attractive shopping district", will they lose their hamlet soul in this adventure ?

The installation of the CREPS (State Sport school), a nightclub and now an acro-branch could eventually seal the destiny of the neighborhood: saved in a niche based on small shops and leisure activities. In return for these choices, a small impact on the environment or at least the impression of a landscape osmosis between relief and plant equipment. The bottom of each streets of Pont-de-l'Arc can be a magnificent viewpoint on the "Belle Endormie" ("Beautiful sleeping", lovely nickname of Aix en Provence). Yeah, but for how long time, asks this worried jogger ? Like a town in Lucky Luke, The Pont de l'Arc is characterized by a consolidation of commercial buildings in the central streets. Together, the urbanization is more discreet beyond the central street, as soon as one sinks into the earth of a crossing road.

The urban area realized by touch suggests beautiful romantic remains. The stop of the cyclist at the Pont-de-l'Arc is like a surprise as the places crossed on the outskirts are still enchanting. The site of the Polyclinic crystallizes the fears of seeing the immediate landscape, "the path we like" corrupted by the game of urban standards. In front of the clinic, a "fluidification roundabout" is provided and with it a stricter frame of the pavement, its surroundings. Once installed, the terminals of the roundabout, the paints on the asphalt to signify pathways of insertion will represent as much value and as a magnet for investors.

As throughout the Petite Route des Milles - on the side of the Vehicle pounds and the CAF ( family support state organism) -  the road network of the Pont de l'Arc and its surroundings tends to become a zone of diffuse activity present well beyond its historical limits. This situation is endemic on the Route des Milles which is becoming more urbanized at every moment. If the planned or realised constructions are dwellings, the final impact is identical : an installation of "useful land in the short back".  Thus, the area of Aix Sud is undergoing a process of rationalization of space. In this sense, it is important to identify the usefulness, the atendu yield for this urban periphery. Should we, to protect the backdrop of some bastides, renounce the sirens of development ?

There is no doubt that their inhabitants, gathered together in association, raise a serious question through the prism of their particular problem: that of a programmed asphixia of the Aix-en-Provence city. Without pouring into a chlorophylic apocalypse or ecological apology, the city to remain a city cannot do without a singular area. Without it, no limits are envisaged between urban areas, between streets and roads, between areas of activity and zones of nothing. As good guardians, sometimes zeled sometimes absent, the inhabitants of the zones of nothing, where the relations are only of non-commercial order, hope to remain in the future in an identical frame.

Where the walker crunches an apple, where lovers meet every night, where snails gather like so many spaces in these zones of nothing. The walker dominates as much as they can the space, he enjoys according to the closures, constrained by the gates but he still enjoys the taste of the Provençal summer. Outside: it is the everyday city and its mass services, its straight trots and its traffic lights: another protocol.

When the waves of the Arc load the sludge of the winter leaves with them its closest residents. 

The so-called squat of Palette was located just a few steps from the river, below the small neighborhood of le Pont-des-Trois-Sautet. 

As we mentioned in a previous article, the vast land that was once imagined in the supermarket was occupied by a rather young population

of squatters for about ten years.

The oldest were often from squats dismantled during the previous decade as in Infirmary or Route des Alpes (Aix en Provence). 

On this Saturday morning, Red Crest, the historic leader of the Aixois marginals, is KO : his vehicle waiting at the entrance of the squat. 

Notified on Thursday, May 3, the squatters had only one day to evacuate the area. In terms of vehicles and housing, the losses are spread out in the form of large

mounds of caravan remains, trucks collected by municipal excavators. 

Without a hitch, the inhabitants gave up while some Roma were already busy extracting some scraps of metal from the remains of the camp.

Where the Autoroute du Soleil runs, the sky merges into hills of scrubland. 

At the height of the Lançon-de-Provence motorway station, despite the consequent motorway right-of-way, the physiognomy of the past landscape is still present. 

Cut in two, a vast estate included around, in addition to a superb castle being protected by an anti-noise wall, a farm, farmland in abundance its lot of outbuildings. 

A few centuries after the construction of the complex, the road divided into two spaces the estate.

On the side where the cars go up to the north, a vast basin is sad: deprived of water. 

Not that the latter is unfit to contain the precious liquid but rather that at the end of the highway works completed in 1970 its uselessness was consecrated.

At the end of a dead end, on the side of the motorway remains the remains of what was the house of Mr H, guardian of his state of the immence domain formerly owned by Charles Trenet (famous French singer 60s) in Aix-en-Provence. If we have already devoted an article (here) to the pomp of the Spirit Domain, we suggest you to discover one of its annexes.

If at the time of the splendour of this vast property Mr H had only a few meters to do to find Charles or the dog Micha, the construction of the highway in 1960 made this practice obsolete. Similarly, the Singing Fool had to rebuild a swimming pool, the original pool being located after the road works on the other side of the road.

The house of Mr H which represented the oldest building of the estate ended up isolated, kept away from the throes of a long-court succession. On the following pictures, a visit to this abandoned site, used by each other to store a boat here, further a few wrecks. Coated, the "Dessalé" light boat of Mr H patient along the highway fence.