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Launched in the 1960s, the nine French New Towns are generally considered as a pragmatic response to the urban growth of the Paris region, before it was extended as a national policy to other regions (Merlin, 1997). If their creation is usually placed in the continuity of Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City Movement and of previous New Towns experiments, especially those conducted in England, this historical lineage has never been appreciated in terms of architectural and urban research. Were the French New Towns projects formulated against these early ideas and models or, on the contrary, planned in light of them? Moreover, what are the main characteristics of their projects, their points of resemblance and particularities? These questions, often raised by observers, cannot be answered without a comprehensive knowledge of each New Town’s story, which is not yet available. But a renewed comprehension of their common history can be proposed by analysing their creation in light of the French urban debate of the twentieth century, and by giving special attention to two housing projects which, in Évry and Le Vaudreuil, were presented as ‘landmark operations of contemporary urban planning’ (New Towns Program, 1971).

In the space of 50 years, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (SQY) has seen a variety of urban development contexts. In the 1970s, the initial master plan revolved around a hierarchical organisation of hubs, and the priority went to the economic question. It also created a specific public road system, along with housing districts endowed with a wide range of amenities to provide a new ‘way of life’. Fifty years later, a number of points typical of SQY’s specific urban nature can be identified. This chapter mentions three of them: an urban ‘dividing line’, the organisation of urbanisation into small towns (urban units) and the aesthetic and environmental qualities of the town. These urban planning qualities have been addressed by the recent Comprehensive Local Development Plan (2016–2018). However, other points such as public transport, driving conditions, nightlife and quality of the green spaces are the topics discussed by experts and citizens in the local conversation.