In France, the term banlieue (; ) refers to a suburb of a large city. Banlieues are divided into autonomous administrative entities and do not constitute part of the city proper. For instance, 80percent of the inhabitants of the Paris metropolitan area live outside the city of Paris. Nevertheless, beginning in the 1970s, the term banlieue has taken on a particular connotation, becoming a popular word for economically-deprived suburbs featuring low-income housing projects (HLMs) that are home to large immigrant populations. People of foreign descent reside in what are often called poverty traps. History In France, since the establishment of the Third Republic at the beginning of the 1870s, communities beyond the city centre essentially stopped spreading their own boundaries, as a result of the extension of the larger Paris urban agglomeration. The city – which in France corresponds to the concept of the "urban unit" – does not necessarily have a correspondence with a single administrative location, and instead includes other communities that link themselves to the city centre and form the banlieues. Since annexing the banlieues of major French cities during the Second Empire period (Lyon in 1852, Lille in 1858, Paris in 1860, Bordeaux in 1865), the French communities have in effect extended their boundaries very little beyond their delimitations, and have not followed the development of the urban unit existing prior to 1870 as well as almost all large and mid-sized cities in France having a banlieue develop a couronne pėriurbaine (in English: near-urban ring). Communities in the countryside beyond the near-urban ring are regarded as being outside the city's strongest social and economic sphere of influence, and are termed communes périurbaines. In either case, they are divided into numerous autonomous administrative entities. Banlieues 89, a design-led urban policy backed by the French government, renovated over 140 low-cost estates, such as Les Minguettes and the Mas du Taureau block in Vaulx-en-Velin. Improvements were made in road and rail access, cafes and shops were built, and the towers and blocks were made to look more attractive. In Vaulx-en-Velin, for instance, shops and a library were built, houses were built to make the landscape more interesting, 2,500 homes were renovated, and the blocks were repainted. Geography of the banlieues The word banlieue is, in formal use, a socially neutral term, designating the urbanized zone located around the city centre, comprising both sparsely and heavily populated areas. Therefore, in