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French to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Social Science, Sociology, Ethics, etc. / urban planning
French term or phrase:morceau de ville
Sorry if this is obvious, but I am facing a tight deadline...
"Morceau de ville" seems to be a fairly common expression in French – does anyone know the English equivalent? Here is the exact sentence (a Google search will show some other examples):
Étendre un centre ville, réhabiliter un espace urbain excentré en créant un véritable « morceau de ville » intégré à l’ensemble ; comment harmoniser ces espaces dissemblables et revitalisés pour le plaisir de ses futurs habitants ?
not sure about the community bit - it does imply a camaraderie that may not exist in these new areas - but on the other hand, it does seem to fit the context!
Thanks Marc and Anne. I really appreciate your responding so quickly. The authors seem pretty big on the whole metropolitan/urban/city centre idea.... whereas local community seems to imply suburbia and small towns (at least to me).
Given that, do you think something like "a true urban community" would work?
Automatic update in 00:
Answers
26 mins confidence:
mini - downtown
Explanation: Bearing in mind the tight deadline, and like Marc, with no research to back me up......... I think I have heard it translated like this.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 33 mins (2007-04-05 14:13:11 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Étendre le centre ville… L’idée faisait son chemin depuis plusieurs années. Avec ses 8,5 hectares d’un seul tenant entre l’hypercentre et les Grands Boulevards, c’est l’ancienne caserne de Bonne qui va offrir cette opportunité exceptionnelle.
Le projet se devait d’être à la hauteur des enjeux : de nouveaux logements familiaux et sociaux, un vaste parc, une offre commerciale qui complète l’attractivité du centre ville, un environnement de qualité, bref, un véritable « morceau de ville » à créer pour le plaisir de ses futurs habitants.
Les ressources et l’emplacement du site sont valorisés par des solutions originales et écologiques, autant pour les logements que pour les commerces. Les grands choix d’aménagement et d’architecture illustrent les principes édictés par le plan local d’urbanisme.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 35 mins (2007-04-05 14:15:17 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Read before you post Anne. :-(.....this is probablythe same text as the one you are translating!
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 47 mins (2007-04-05 14:27:40 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Urban district could be a possibility?
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 51 mins (2007-04-05 14:31:19 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Or sector - see how it has been translated here:
L'espace public des Docklands : quand le privé fait la ville
"part of town" / unitary or stand-alone urban space / purpose-designed urban area or space
Explanation: In a lot of instances (such as here) this term is used in inverted commas, indicating that it is not a standard town planning term.
My answers above are based on hunches that I've got from various sources on the internet.
Of course, there's nothing to stop you playing safe and just saying "part of town".
My take on it is that anything in inverted commas is non-standard French and therefore extremely difficult to translate, you need almost to read the author's mind.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2007-04-05 15:19:19 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Oh, and do keep the inverted commas en anglais if you go for "part of town" "area of town" or something general like that, you would be fully justified in doing so.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 1 hr (2007-04-05 15:21:00 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
I thing it's a new-fangled urban design / town planning concept, with the emphasis on DESIGN, rather than any community-building objective. That's my take on it, anyway.
Conor McAuley France Local time: 23:43 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 14
The translation workplace 
