Christophe Jemelin

Assessing sustainability: An assessment framework to evaluate Agenda 21 actions at the local level

SUMMARY In Switzerland, communities are encouraged to define and to report on local Agenda 21. This paper presents an analysis framework to help local communities set sustainable development priorities and to follow through with appropriate actions. Four Swiss communities, from the French-speaking part of Switzerland, actively follow the project: Lausanne (114 304 citizens), Vevey (15 364 citizens), Mannens-Grandsivaz (505 citizens) and Essertines/Yverdon (666 citizens). The analysis framework developed is constituted of four interdependent fields: the societal characteristics, the individual or collective behaviours, the end objectives or sustainability impacts and the inhabitants perception of these three fields. The link between society and behaviour can be studied through sociological analyses. The link between behaviour and environmental impact can be established thanks to Life Cycle analysis and Input/Output analyses. At each level, sustainable development indicators can be defined. As an application of the framework, the citizen energy consumption has been studied and expressed in energy slaves (= 3150 MJ/Year). A Swiss citizen needs altogether 69 slaves, 20 for his private consumption of goods and services, 19 for housing, 11 for transport, I1 for food and 8 for his consumption of public goods. If one fifth of the inhabitants of Lausanne, wanting to live closer to nature, actually moved out of town, the region would need 10 436 more slaves for 3500 persons happily living in the countryside.

How Does Urban Public Transport Change Cities? Correlations between Past and Present Transport and Urban Planning Policies

Is it possible to discern correlations between past and present urban policies? Do path dependencies exist at the urban level? If so, how do they differ from other links between the past and present? A preview of the literature dealing with dependencies and urban change, a presentation of the research methodology and an examination of the historical archives of six European cities in France, Germany and Switzerland enable us to identify three features common to both past and present transport and urban planning policies—namely, contingency, reproduction and innovation.

Automobile et modes de vie urbains quel degré de liberté

Keywords: personenkraftwagen ; pkw (fahrzeugtechnik) ; lebensqualitaet/stadtentwicklung (soziale probleme) ; stadtverkehr ; verkehrspolitik + transportpolitik ; frankreich (westeuropa). franzoesische republik Reference LASUR-BOOK-2001-002 Record created on 2007-05-07, modified on 2016-08-08

Switzerland as a Single Metropolitan Area? A Study of its Commuting Network

Out of the many ingredients that together build urban areas, three deserve particular consideration as their relationship is evolving: the functional centrality, the morphology of built-up areas and the way of life. Those three characteristics do not necessarily match along territorial lines anymore. To overcome this limitation, this article suggests approaching urbanity in terms of cohesion. To illustrate this approach under a specific analytical point of view, the paper describes a cohesion index based on the commuter relationships between the Swiss communes from 1970 to 2000. For 2000, further distinction is made between car-based and public transport-based commuting patterns, which allowed discrimination between two scales of cohesiveness between the Swiss agglomerations.