By François Valérian
Rédacteur en chef des Annales des Mines
La ville est désormais partout. Le regroupement des populations dans les aires urbaines est de plus en plus rapide, et il s’observe sur tous les continents, au Nord comme au Sud, en Asie comme en Europe ou en Amérique. Le phénomène résulte évidemment de l’intensification des échanges mondiaux. L’économie ne peut croître que là où il y a connexion forte avec l’environnement national et international, et c’est dans les villes que ces connexions s’établissent.
Il en résulte toutes les difficultés liées aux fortes concentrations humaines. Les services publics ont du mal à rattraper la croissance de la population, l’espace est de plus en plus dévoré par la ville, les inégalités, autrefois interrégionales, sont de plus en plus aigües à l’intérieur même des zones urbaines. La violence en découle, et avec elle une certaine inefficacité économique.
Il faut ici distinguer, non pas tant entre Nord et Sud, qu’entre l’Europe du Nord-Ouest et le reste du monde. La France et quelques autres pays n’ont pas renoncé à planifier la croissance urbaine. Certes, les héros et les mythes fondateurs (Delouvrier, la Datar, le RER, la Défense et les villes nouvelles) sont un peu lointains et ne font plus l’unanimité : de grands exploits collectifs, mais à quel coût ? Selon certains, cependant, la croissance urbaine pourrait se faire vers le haut, en exploitant les espaces aérés des centres-villes historiques, et l’étalement urbain pourrait être contré par une action volontaire de l’Etat. En même temps, des mouvements mondiaux sont ici à l’œuvre, et l’attractivité des centres-villes est un atout majeur pour capter et retenir les investissements internationaux.
Faut-il en conclure que les seuls modèles possibles soient ceux de la ville méditerranéenne au développement anarchique, ou de la ville chinoise à la croissance très rapide mais porteuse de lourdes inégalités ? Ce serait contraire à la tradition d’équilibre social de pays comme la France et l’Allemagne. La puissance publique peut accompagner et corriger. Elle ne mettra pas pour autant, selon le mot fameux, « les villes à la campagne ».
By Marie-Josèphe Carrieu-Costa
Amble Consultants
By Claude Martinand
vice-président du Conseil général des ponts et chaussées (CGPC)
et Gilbert Santel
président de la section "Aménagement des territoires au CGPC"
As history proves, cities have often come into conflict with the centralized power of nation-states. Given urban developments during a period of globalization and an EU with 27 members, as natural resources are running out and the climate is becoming milder, the “sustainable” city must be invented. This challenge for the new Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development in France implies jointly redefining cooperation with local authorities.
By Jean Laterrasse
UMR « Ville, Mobilité,Transport », laboratoire commun de l’Université de Paris Est et de l’INRETS.
Cities — now present in all human societies — represent a new challenge for the social sciences, in particular economics. Theories based on an optimization under constraints must be worked out in a social and spatial framework. Economics can gain from a dialog with geography and sociology.
By Jean-Paul Carrière
Professeur d'aménagement de l'espace et urbanisme Ecole Polytechnique de l'Université de Tours
Acccording to the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), Europe’s cohesion calls for building a polycentric urban system on the continent. Might a strategy for reinforcing middle-sized cities through a network not help reduce the imbalance between regions, in particular, by making up for the relative weakness of cities in peripheral areas? The answer presupposes defining and identifying this category of cities.
By Marie-Françoise Calmette
Chercheur associé à l'IDEI, Université Toulouse 1
The growth of urban economies does not necessarily go in hand with a fairer society. Growth attracts growth, and cities tend to form around the most active areas of production or consumption. A city waters the surrounding area only insofar as it drains it. Public authorities should try to attenuate this trend’s effects on populations in outlying areas.
By Pierre-Noël Giraud
Professeur à l'Ecole des Mines de Paris
In the coming decades, the world’s population will mainly grow in big cities in the South — at a rate unparalleled in human history. Services for the people concerned are not at all growing as fast. The major issues related to urban growth are, for the time being, beyond control.
By Colette Vallat
Professeur, Paris 10, Mosaïques-Louest-UMR 7145
Urban chaos is rife along the shores of the Mediterranean. A city “moves”; it changes depending on population movements, needs, and social or political compromises. Such a city forms a lively contrast with the “legal”, regulated, planned cities in the West.
By Ariella Masboungi
Architecte-urbaniste en chef de l'Etat
A city that Hemingway described as rich and ugly became ugly and poor during the 1950s. But the foundation of a Guggenheim Museum has resurrected the city. This major architectural and cultural feat has deeply changed urbanism and architecture in Bilbao, now the beacon of the Spanish movida.
By Patrice Godier et Guy Tapie
Sociologues PAVE Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture et de Paysage de Bordeaux
Urban projects have always been associated with policies and experts, with control over a clearly delimited field of knowledge (for example, voting patterns). Those who Inhabit or use cities are now demanding a voice in matters not easily described by traditional fields of knowledge.
By Jean-Michel Roux
Consultant, Transversal
Housing prices are rising less because of a shortage than owing to the use of real estate as a safe investment haven. This conception, though apparently beneficial to homeowners (who make up the majority of the population), deepens the social rift in urban areas. It is an awesome source of windfall profits when ground is zoned for construction. Given their shortcomings, current land and zoning policies cannot counter it.
By Dominique LORRAIN
CNRS, CEMS-EHESS
Formerly described as places for the “reproduction” of capital, cities have now become major centers for producing it. This change, more or less irreversible, accounts for the organization of ongoing exchanges between networks of, on the one hand, very big cities and, on the other, very big firms.
By Pierre Calame
Directeur Général Fondation Charles Léopold Mayer
The decline of cities used to be predicted, but the opposite is happening. The world is urbanizing, and the world economy is taking shape around urban and regional growth. In this respect, we can refer to a “territorial revenge”. Regions are destined to become the building block of tomorrow’s forms of governance. But this will happen only if the way of conceiving of “actors” changes and if a new approach is taken to economics and to town-country relations. This conceptual shift will have to entail a deep change in the governance of cities.
By François Ascher
Professeur à l'Institut Français d'Urbanisme, Université Paris 8
Cities have always been meeting-places. Chance meetings create growth and wealth. Moreover, science advances thanks to what has been called “serendipity” — the discovery by scientists of something they were not looking for. The form of a city can foster chance encounters in the limits set by time and by the inhabitants’ financial means. One thing is certain: the recent concern for the environment is stimulating collective thought and action with the city as its framework.
By Gérard Bertolini
Economiste, Directeur de Recherche au CNRS, UMR 5205 LIRIS
Like other public services, the local management of garbage disposal needs to be evaluated and held accountable for its performance. This involves defining criteria and selecting indicators for measuring progress in local services and establishing comparisons with other localities. Performance has several facets, whence the need for several criteria of evaluation. Based on an analysis of feasability and pertinence, indicators — few in number and sufficiently simple — are proposed for a dashboard.
