In fact, we «banlieusards» from Paris have a tendency to consider ourselves as «THE» banlieue. The most emblematic one. But most big cities have one of their own. Marseilles, Lyon and Lille have theirs.

>banlieue = subburbs.

Yeah, but you have to explain that subburbs are not the same in France as in the U.S. Here, subburbs are generally where educated, middle-class people go to live (although that is changing in some places).

In France, the "banlieu" subburbs are what we would call the "inner-city". Speaking colloquially, the ghetto.

Big difference, and just translating "banlieu" as "subburb" does not explain this.

>the analogous word in American media is ‘urban’

I would say the analogous word is "inner-city". "Urban" carries a limited range of socio-cultural connotations, unlike "banlieu" and "inner-city".

Well, knowledge does not jump from written media to brain, else, everyone would be doing their own molotov cocktail (I still prefer the Joliot-Curie), TNT (pretty easy, we learnt it at school while doing mono nitration of toluene), nuclear bomb ... that is what makes the world quite safe in fact.

I was forced to borrow from the adult library when I was 11 because I had already read everything and I was too demanding. But I guess it was not enough :)

But I don't think hidden social rules are taught in books. Behaving «socially correctly» is not taught either. Which so far has been quite my main problem.