Mériadeck

This guide to Mériadeck in Bordeaux traces the district back to 1769, when the city's new archbishop, Ferdinand-Maximilien de Rohan, drained a stretch of marshland hoping to sell it off for quick profit. The buyers who actually came were cobblers, laundresses, market traders and cabaret keepers, who built a close-knit working quarter that took the archbishop's own name. You'll hear how that reputation turned against the neighborhood by the mid-twentieth century, as officials under mayor Jacques Chaban-Delmas began quietly clearing it out street by street. Look up at the striated concrete around you while you listen for what replaced it.