Long before the Charlie Hebdo shootings last month, Paris struggled with its identity. But the attacks have spurred uncomfortable conversations about the city's large—and often segregated—population of immigrants. According to the New York Times, one step forward is new plan that will be undertaken in the following year to begin connecting the city proper to its remote suburbs.

The project is being helmed by an urban planner named Pierre Mansat, who has been working on it for several years. The project, which is being called Métropole du Grand Paris, will grow a committee to expand transportation, services, and better urban planning for the suburbs.

Pascal Blanchard, a social historian, explained to Times that this plan, which was in part started by Nicolas Sarkozy as a method to build a rail system between the city and the farther-out airports, comes with a number of its own complications:

Belonging is a complex issue. "Young people in Grigny have grandparents who were part of the colonial empire," said Pascal Blanchard, a social historian. "Now their parents live in the suburbs on the edge of society, in what is basically a continuation of the colonial situation, and they're stuck there with no jobs, no hope. We keep pouring money into urban improvements, talking about new train stations and about restating French values. But the problem is skin color. And you can't change that by changing buildings or getting everybody to sing the 'Marseillaise.' "

While details about the Métropole project are limited, urban planners and sociologists in the city recognize the importance of linking the city to its current ghettoized suburbs; as Mansat explains it, this will make the metro area feel more "inclusive, integrated, fluid."

"People in poor suburbs will belong to the same city as people in the Seventh Arrondissement. This is a profound change," Mansat told the Times.

[Image via AP]