Roubaix (US: /ruːˈbeɪ/ roo-BAY, French: [ʁubɛ] or [ʁube] ⓘ; Dutch: Robaais; West Flemish: Roboais; Picard: Roubés) is a city in northern France, located in the Lille metropolitan area on the Belgian border.

It is a historically mono-industrial commune[3] in the Nord department,[4] which grew rapidly in the 19th century from its textile industries, with most of the same characteristic features as those of English and American boom towns.

[5][6] This former new town has faced many challenges linked to deindustrialisation such as urban decay,[7] with their related economic and social implications, since its major industries fell into decline by the middle of the 1970s.

Located to the northeast of Lille, adjacent to Tourcoing, Roubaix is the chef-lieu of two cantons and the third largest city in the French region of Hauts-de-France ranked by population with nearly 99,000 inhabitants.

[10][11][12] To a greater extent, Roubaix is in the center of a vast conurbation formed with the Belgian cities of Mouscron, Kortrijk and Tournai, which gave birth to the first European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation in January 2008, Lille–Kortrijk–Tournai with an aggregate population of over 2 million inhabitants.

These municipalities are namely: Tourcoing to the north and the northwest, Wattrelos to the northeast, Leers to the east, Lys-lez-Lannoy to the southeast, Hem to the south and Croix to the southwest and the west.

Roubaix, alongside those municipalities and twenty-one other communes, belongs to the land of Ferrain, a little district of the former Castellany of Lille between the Lys and Scheldt rivers.

The Roubaisian area stretches on an east-west oriented shallow syncline axis which trends south-southeast to the Paleozoic limestone[16] of the Mélantois-Tournaisis faulted anticline.

[19] From that century on, the ensuing industries, with their increasing needs for reliable supplies of goods and water, led to the building of an inland waterway connected upstream from the Deûle and downstream to the Marque and Espierre toward the Scheldt, which linked directly Roubaix to Lille.

[43][44][45] The evolution of the number of inhabitants is known through the population censuses carried out in the town since 1793 and the research study of Louis-Edmond Marissal, Clerk of the Peace of the city, published in 1844.

[57][58][59] Although the region of Roubaix was subjected many times to the domination of Flanders' rulers throughout its history, Roubaisians have used a local Picard variant as the language of everyday life for centuries.

[62] Therefore, French language progressive penetration into local culture should not only be analysed as a result of the industrialisation and urbanisation of the area but should also be considered in terms of public education policies.

[67][68][69] The newly opened synagogue, located in a house at number 51 on the narrow rue des Champs,[67][69] operated more than 60 years, until 1939, when it was closed under imprecise local circumstances as the Nazi regime took over in Europe.

[69][70] Despite the closure of the synagogue, the occupation and police raids,[note 1][72] the local practise of Judaism saw a humble revival after the war which lasted until the start of the 1990s when the modest Jewry of Roubaix handed over its Sefer Torah to the care of the Jewish community of Lille.

[67] On 10 September 2015 the mayor unveiled a commemorative plaque on the rue des Champs, as a tribute to the Roubaisian Jewry, in memory of the religious purpose of this previous building.

[77] During the Middle Age, the city grew in a northward-facing semicircle around its primitive core, beyond the area spread out between the church Saint Martin and the former fortified castle.

Roubaix is twinned with:[86] Remarkable buildings, old brick factories and warehouses abound in this once renowned city which was esteemed to be a worldwide textile capital in the early years of the 20th century.

After a long slack period 2010 introduced a shift in the genre with the unveiling of Wim Delvoye's Discobolos, a statue of modern art conceived as a welcoming sign to a neighbourhood of the city.

This museum is housed in the Art Deco-style former swimming pool of Roubaix, a building remodelled in 2000 to accommodate and exhibit 19th and 20th century collections of the city.

[114][115][116] Anxious to restore the prestige of northern France's textile industry and operating under the label of Maisons de Mode, the cities of Lille and Roubaix have created spaces for new fashion designers to thrive since 2007.

From that moment on and since the implementation of the French urban policy in the early 1980s, around three-fourths of the town's territory has been regularly assigned specific zoning designations as well as health and welfare plans.

[96][143] Successive local governments have tried to address difficulties associated with deindustrialisation by attracting new industries, making the most of the town's cultural credentials[96] and organising a strong student presence on different campuses.

While undergoing conversion efforts, the city is experimenting with new models and able to take advantage of successful economic stories, with online retail and information technology, and seems to be on the way to reverse the decades of decline.