Gilles Pinson

From the Governance of Sustainability to the Management of Climate Change: Reshaping Urban Policies and Central–local Relations in France

Abstract This paper analyses the interlinked usages of the concepts of ‘governance’ and ‘sustainable development’ over the past two decades of French urban policies. It shows that the importance of ‘sustainable development’ procedural principles has significantly declined in public agendas alongside the rise to prominence of climate change issues. Based on a study of the urban policies developed by central French government authorities since the 1990s, it identifies two main phases. In the 1990s and early 2000s, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘governance’ slogans were extensively mobilized in urban policies for the purposes of modernizing public action. In a context of economic, social and institutional transformations, these urban policies aimed at constructing local dynamics of collective action and encouraged the emergence of projects relying on incremental and deliberative practices. As of the mid-2000s, this dynamic weakened and climate change replaced sustainable development as a reference in urban policies. This shift occurred in the context of a neo-managerial restructuring, with central government authorities regaining influence over cities and urban policies being redefined around quantitative and technical objectives.

Networked cities and steering states: Urban policy circulations and the reshaping of State–cities relationships in France:

This article focuses on the circulation of urban policy “models” and its influence on the reshaping of relationships between State and cities in France. It suggests that the increasing mobility of practices and knowledge between cities cannot be explained solely by the intensification of horizontal exchanges involving city halls throughout Europe. It also relies on the restructuring of the State and the transformation of its intervention in urban policymaking processes. By considering the Programme National de Rénovation Urbaine and the Plan Ville Durable, the article highlights the emergence of a new model of State–cities relationships characterized by the tracking of local “exemplary” initiatives, and by their certification and diffusion by the central State itself. This new model of relationships allows the State to strengthen its capacity to steer urban policies at a distance, without actually challenging the rise in power of French cities.

Place equality regime(s) in French City Regions

After providing an overview of the French welfare regime and structure of urban governance, this chapter focuses on four city regions in France with regard to both their socioeconomic and political features. In all the cases considered, while social inequalities are deepening due to the transformation of job markets, territorial disparities are evolving much more slowly, even if they have widened in the last years. The chapter explores how central state transfers and local public spending still manage to compensate for the growing territorial inequalities. It concludes by stressing the role that metropolitan governments might play henceforth in the correction of socio-spatial inequalities, following a gradual withdrawal of the state from local affairs.