Large Housing Estates in France
Success and fail factors of policies
RESTATE report WP8
Fatiha Belmessous
Christine Chemin
Franck Chignier-Riboulon
Nicole Commerçon
Marcele Trigueiro
RESTATE
Restructuring Large-scale Housing Estates in European Cities: Good Practices
and New Visions for Sustainable Neighbourhoods and Cities
Utrecht 2005
Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University
Table of contents
1
Introduction .............................................................................. 3
2
Presentation of the estates ....................................................... 3
3
Policies selected ....................................................................... 4
4
Success and fail factors as described by the CUR and
other actors .............................................................................. 5
4.1
Description of the success and fail factors ........................................ 5
4.2
Trends ......................................................................................... 5
4.2.1
Policy of the central state, between integration and social
marginalisation ............................................................................. 5
4.2.2
Economic development .................................................................. 7
4.3
Education ..................................................................................... 8
4.4
Financing ..................................................................................... 9
4.5
Urban planning questions ............................................................... 9
4.6
The integration of health programmes ........................................... 11
4.7
Debate of the success and fail factors of the policies applied ............ 12
5
General conclusion .................................................................. 13
5.1
Judgement on possible fields of generalisation ................................ 13
5.2
Suggestions for items to be targeted or to be avoided in
policies, programmes and projects ................................................ 13
References ......................................................................................... 16
List of people interviewed.................................................................. 17
2
1
Introduction
The inventory of success and fail factors in the rehabilitation and running of
large housing estates needs to take into account a few preliminary remarks.
First of all, the context of the inventory is of great importance, in terms
of historical and economic background, territorial scales, use and quality of
data (secondary or first analysis), types of stakeholders, actions analysed by
the researchers.
We must also note that, in France, this valuation of the public policies
related to the social housing has been realised during the 1980s and the
beginning of the 1990s. In spite of various calls in order to do it necessary, the
national evaluation has been stopped. For instance the Sueur Report of 1998
(Sueur, 1998) and the Audit Office of 2002 (Cour des comptes, 2002)
complained about the piling up of the policies and their sector-related nature.
And this lack can be considered as the first and general source of failure.
2
Presentation of the estates
At this moment, we will give a short presentation of the two estates, which
were used as examples: La Ville Nouvelle, in the commune of Rillieux-la-Pape
and Les Minguettes, in Vénissieux.
In fact, the estate of La Ville Nouvelle is the ZUP1 of Rillieux-la-Pape,
built between 1960 and 1976. This estate has a high density: 7,472 dwellings
in 157 hectares. Among these apartments, 5,526 belong to the social renting
system (HLM), administrated by four social partners. Furthermore, the territory
of La Ville Nouvelle is divided into seven neighbourhoods: Verchères, Bottet,
Charmilles, Rivot, Semailles, Allagniers, Velette and Mont-Blanc. It is also
important to mention the geographically exceptional situation of this site: due
to its privileged position, this estate has one of the most beautiful sights of the
whole Greater Lyon.
The estate of Les Minguettes is the largest of Greater Lyon in terms of
inhabitants: 21,312 inhabitants in 1999.2 Built between 1965 and 1975, this
estate became internationally well-known with the social and race riots of
1981, through several reports in TV. This first period of social troubles pushed
forward national policies for urban social questions. However, Les Minguettes
also seem to be an example of urban reconstitution, if we take into account all
the projects, which have been carried out, in particular through the urban
renewal operations: demolition, reconstruction and rehabilitation. Moreover,
the stock of social housing is administrated by eleven social partners.
ZUP: ‘Zone à Urbaniser en Priorité’ (urban development zone).
‘Observatoire des Territoires Sensibles de l’Agglomération Lyonnaise, Rapport Annuel
2000, Communauté Urbaine de Lyon’.
1
2
3
Nowadays, the estate of Les Minguettes has 9,200 housing units, and 7,271 of
them are designated to social location.
3
Policies selected
The people who we have interviewed have selected the policies. Therefore,
within these policies, we have chosen the factors to illustrate the success and
fail aspects. The choice of the key actors has been done in regard to their
functions, their needs and their goals.
In fact, they were motivated by the questions and their arguments have
given us an orientation for listing the most important policies they have
pointed out. During the interviews, we have tried to not influence the
interlocutors and to let them show, based on their own independent
experiences, the categories of policies they would like to approach3 (Table 3.1).
Table 3.1
Policy /
programme or
project
Sectoral /
integrated or
mix of both
Top-down
/bottom-up or
mix of both
Outcome or process
oriented
Borloo Law
(demolition)
ZFU (free taxes)
Sectoral
Top-down
Outcome oriented
Sectoral
Mix of both
Outcome oriented
ZEP
Sectoral
Top-down
Process oriented
Urban planning
programme
Sectoral
Mix of both
Outcome oriented
Health
programme
Mix of both
Mix of both
Outcome oriented
Type of action
targeted at
a) estates
b) general urban
matters
c) social,
educational,
welfare policy in
a wider sense
Estates
Estates /
economic policy
Estates / social
and educational
policy
Estates / general
urban matters /
social,
educational and
economic policy
in a wider sense
Estates / social,
educational and
welfare policy
Source: own research, 2004
The overwork of certain key actors did not permit the organisation of the focus group,
as it was indicated by the methodological orientations. In this sense and according to
the deadlines, we have tried to employ the same directives during individual
interviews.
3
4
4
Success and fail factors as described by the CUR
and other actors
4.1
Description of the success and fail factors
Amongst the various interventions of the interviewed persons, members of the
CURS, and others as well, six main items have emerged, feeding the
questioning; each item has been considered both as a success or a fail factor in
the rehabilitation and running of large housing estates. First of all, the urban
state policies have been quoted and judged as a main question; then, the
economic development has been pointed out, before the education system, the
financial budget allowed to the large housing estates, the demolition and
rebuilding programmes and, at least, the integration of health programmes.
4.2
Trends
With regard to the urban policies, the fail factors are more reported than their
success ones are. Generally speaking, they are stigmatised as being too much
ideological, far away from the reality, and successively added one after the
other, without taking into account the scarce audit reports ever done. Also, as
a fail factor, the complex administrative divisions are mentioned, except for the
large extra-territorial entities like Greater Lyon where the space solidarity
works better.
4.2.1
Policy of the central state, between integration and social
marginalisation
One of the most important themes for stakeholders and local technicians is
about the involvement of policies (educational ones, safety ones and so on)
and actors to provide equality of treatment and to create a common identity.
Creating a common identity means living the same citizenship and sharing the
same nation values and perspectives. In fact, in spite of the implementation of
several and successive policies, the gap increases about the cultural aspects
and choices, even if the issue has got solution in a personal way of national
inclusion. Of course, social, economic (impoverishment) and segregation
(discriminations) trends are general evolutions and build the conditions of
concentration of deprived and ethnic populations within neighbourhoods in
decline.
Otherwise, the involvement of public partners is strong and has
increased along the last decades. One of the most noted aspects is the
proximity policy, i.e. the development of local offices to answer quickly and
precisely to inhabitants’ demands. For instance, the neighbourhoods’ offices of
social landlords, the neighbourhoods’ offices of jobs centres, the increasing of
leisure centres for young people and so on. Thus, the aim is to territorialise
public policies, to provide best services and to be present within the
5
neighbourhoods in decline. This type of action is a success with an
improvement over the time. Certain respondents told us the public policies
have supported local initiatives, particularly in the second half of the 1980s.
Nevertheless, according to several interviewees (educational persons,
social workers, employment trainer or the mayor of Vénissieux), the citizenship
feeling declines linked to specific cultural perceptions and demands. For our
respondents, the French state is present by public services and humanistic civil
servants but common and republican values have been deserted. The actors
consider two main aspects. On the one hand, some persons think this type of
urban territories has not the same rights and treatments: because of the
media’s visions or police interventions; the right of a normal daily well-being is
not respected; they are marginalised citizens. On the other hand, and in
relation with the first case, some interviewees believe local and national
authorities have accepted bad behaviour evolutions; this kind of tolerance has
involved social perversions as acceptation of local violent relationships.
Consequently, inhabitants ‘want their rights but nothing identifies the common
law in the neighbourhood’.
The general development, i.e. of more segregated cities, may explain
this situation but our key actors gave us other elements explaining this failure.
Five conclusions can be presented. For the mayor of Vénissieux, the urban
policy is only ‘a cosmetic policy’ to mask real and increasing problems,
especially for the extreme religious way; so, this policy is inefficient to respond
to a larger problem of exclusion. For other people, this failure is linked to too
much tolerance for deviant social attitudes, in relation to indifference towards
these neighbourhoods in decline (managing the ghetto itself) or in relation to
colonisation guilty attitude and so on. The third element finding out in
interviews concerns another aspect of indifference: in order to obtain ‘social
peace’, authorities have accepted or allowed deviant behaviours if the deviance
is closed into the neighbourhood; the ambiguous attitude towards a revival,
radical, Islam is integrated in. The fourth argument is that authorities did not
work correctly in the beginning of the 1980s: to answer to local demands in a
too humanistic way, they accepted deviant attitudes, these ones were
considered as expressions of social demands of victims of the French
capitalistic product system. The last position is about unadapted public policies
approaches. Therefore, in spite of attempts over the last decades, authorities
cannot answer efficiency to local deviances. And, currently, the usual desertion
involves more difficulties to resolve this issue.
Finally, the main issue is the combination between a no change situation
(‘the social lift does not work’ according to André Gérin, mayor of Vénissieux)
and the institutional actors do not give an image of success and efficiency for
the inhabitants, with the same opportunities of success for each one.
This context supports development of religious and ethnic explanations
about integration, social inclusion and citizenship. So, a part of the arguments
of radical Islamic groups or associations is to consider Muslims have got fewer
6
rights than other citizens and, therefore, they are victims of a state
discrimination. Then, they build a social and political translation of social
conditions. This type of development changes the relationships with other parts
of the population and with local actors, especially to the women. This attitude
involves an enforcement of exclusion.
4.2.2 Economic development
According to many actors (linked to economical policies or not), including
economic actions within global policies towards large housing estates
constitutes a new scale.
This consideration of economic development was born in 1996 with the
government of A. Juppé (prime minister from 1995 to 1997) that launched tax
free zones (Law no. 96-987) with the purpose to mix activities and populations
and encourage improvements into economic situations. Initially, the policy was
planned for three types of declining areas: the Zones franches urbaines (free
tax urban areas), the Zones de redynamisation urbaine (economic dynamic for
urban areas) with fewer tax concessions and finally the Zones urbaines
sensibles with restricted advantages.
The present right wing government has decided to continue with this
policy (the former government of Jospin wanted to stop it) by according longer
time to contracts and extending this policy to 41 new sites in ZFU (only 44 in
the former version). They have begun in January 2004.
Properly the communes of Rillieux and Venissieux were in ZRU from
1997 to 2003 and have been included in ZFU in 2004.
Among the successful actions noticed in the interviews, the
implementation of free tax areas both in Venissieux and Rillieux is notified.
Actually, the communes have to manage the relative demands of enterprises
that want to benefit the free taxes. If the economical partners favourably
consider the programme of Rillieux, the case is different for Venissieux whom
the bad image of the estate still remains. But, these assertions must be toned
down because at the same time, they say that the appreciation of the estate is
not so important for managers.
Another factor of success noticed concern the new management of the
Greater Lyon in this policy. Indeed, since 2001, a new job of ‘Chargé de
mission au developpement local’ (in charge of the local economic development
within Greater Lyon) has been created and constitutes the counterpart of the
‘chef de projet’ (urban project manager). This person has to coordinate all the
economic actions made within Greater Lyon, not only those estates in decline.
The city-centre Lyon is on the road to become a quite important territory in
economical way. But, these innovations concern few territories. The political
discourse of the Mayor Gerard Collomb, president of Greater Lyon, traduces
the ambition to find a balance between the arrival of many societies in Lyon
and the decline of certain estates. According to Greater Lyon the responsibility
of economic policies in all the territory, the political intention consists on
7
making the meeting of all the actors. The discourse shared by many actors on
this new situation is positive because Greater Lyon has got legitimacy in these
actions.
Some fail factors have been pronounced and concern first the piling up
of the competences. For example, for the ZFU running, three levels of
responsibility are involved: the services of the commune in charge of the
discussion with the enterprises; the services of Greater Lyon in charge of the
animation of the process; the services of the central state. If in the former
ZFU, this accumulation of actors did not constitute a serious problem, with the
new ZFU, some actors (specially Greater Lyon) are afraid of this. This
constitutes a problem of legitimacy. The communes do not want to be excluded
even partially from this process.
Another fail factor concern the integration of fragile population into the
world of work. Greater Lyon and the local organisation of unemployment and
insertion in the communes share this argument. Actually, the public of these
organisations is different than before: it concerns many foreigners who do not
speak the French language and have to learn it first and after follow trainings
to be able to work; also people who prefer to live with welfare benefits, even if
they are not so important, than having a partial job. Finally, these actors have
to create new tools to encourage them to come back to work.
The last fail factor concerns the problem of discrimination in the work.
Many qualified young people living in these estates are discriminated because
of their origin and their address. The feeling shared by the actors concern the
necessary change of this situation to change the mind that when you come
from these estates you have no chance to succeed. Some local actions are
engaged specially in Rillieux with the creation of a consultative committee
against discriminations.
4.2.3 Education
In terms of education, three points are selected. The first one, as a fail factor,
is a question of culture. Civil marriages have never been taken seriously by the
state or the territorial communities. Certainly, for the disadvantages classes,
some kind of preparation should have been organised, with the purpose to
avoid the too many single-parent families and the problems they induce
(explaining what is a couple, what are obligations to children, how to manage a
budget, etc.).
The second point is linked with the general rule of the ministry of
education: young teachers are at first nominated in schools situated in difficult
areas, such as suburbs with large housing estates. Also, after many years of an
exhausting job, the best teachers are ‘worn out’ and ask to move.
The third point is the recent actions organized for the parents, especially
those facing major difficulties; meetings with teachers and parents permit to
explain the school system and its missions. So, finally, pupils who did not go to
school any more go back to school under their restored and efficient parents’
8
authority, especially if the children are in a failure situation. In consequence, it
appears that actions realised in a proximity field works better than general
measures and to re-create a feeling of confidence is very important.
4.2.4 Financing
The consideration of a policy often depends on its funds. In the case of the
policies leading in depreciated estates, the financial question was recurrent.
During the previous decades, the ambitious programmes were not really led
because of the lack of funds. But, there is a significant change with the Borloo
Law. In fact, 30 billion euros are devoted to the whole programme, among
which 40 million euros for the free tax areas.
According to the actors, this important effort is clearly orientated to
urban projects and obscure a reality.
Thus, social policies are very few financed. This situation exists in
various sectors: local associations, social assistance, social utilities but also in
the sector of the prevention of health. For example, local social structures
cannot help the parents who cannot pay school meals for their children. More
and more fragile children can not find a place in appropriated structures.
Sometimes, they sleep in cars or go to institutional homes for young workers
(foyers de jeunes travailleurs). These establishments are not adapted for this
public.
Finally, many social actors say that urban plans are more important than
human beings. A lot of money is freed for the urban renewal and the human
investment is forsaken. The actors of urban plans obtain easier money than
social actors.
Another type of discourse concerns the waste of money for these
estates. Important funds have been set up to build these large housing estates
and after to rehabilitate them and now to demolish them. The high cost for
these buildings in a short period (less than twenty years since their
rehabilitation) must be considered.
4.2.5 Urban planning questions
The ‘urban renewal’ seems to have become a sort of official method in regard
to the town planning. The policies concerned by the urban renewal are based
on the reconstruction of the city: in fact, several kinds of interventions, like the
rehabilitation, the demolition, the rebuilding, etc., could represent this policy,
focused on the most degraded parts of the city (Trigueiro, 2004). Indeed, the
objective of the urban renewal is to improve and to develop these territories
but, at the same time, to break with the practices of urban spreading out.
However, according to many actors of the urban context, the policy or
the set of actions related to the urban renewal has positive and negative
effects on the estates, even if the original idea still remains appreciated by
political, technical and social actors.
9
Some of them believe that the urban renewal and, in particular, the
actions of ‘demolition and rebuilding’ are better planned and managed than
before; this point seems to be seen as a positive aspect. Nevertheless,
according to the project supervisor, in charge of the sector of La Ville Nouvelle,
in Rillieux-la-Pape, most of the urban actors prefer to make an inversion of
these words and refer to the ‘rebuilding and the demolition’ of today. This term
implies a very important deal for the housing question, because it clearly
means that, nowadays, the priority is to find new dwellings for the inhabitants,
before destroying the old ones. It is important to mention it, because there are
many negative aspects related to the question of demolition: according to an
agent of development, responsible for the sector of Armstrong, in Les
Minguettes, Vénissieux, the loss of reference marks for the inhabitants,
specially for the oldest people, is a fail factor related to the actions of
demolition.
Another positive local aspect, considered by some interviewed persons,
could be called as ‘proximity managements’ or ‘proximity projects’: many
agencies of social housing were created on the district, some persons in charge
of the local development and of the social questions were engaged and the set
of these ‘proximity actions’ is regarded today as a very important realisation in
the estates.
In regard to the urban renewal questions, several points were identified
as fail factors. First of all, the different temporalities of the project represent
today a very important problem: ‘the management of time is very complex;
the representative of the government and the inhabitants want to go faster,
but we cannot rebuild a city in one year’, said the project supervisor, in charge
of the sector of La Ville Nouvelle, in Rillieux-la-Pape. The bureaucratic
questions, another factor considered as a failure one, were also mentioned. In
fact, on the one hand, the heaviness of the system makes that certain actors
spend too much time on these issues; on the other hand, the city contracts
have a very short duration: in this sense, the time is often summarised and
the technicians are daily confronted to an important limitation of time.
According to some of the interviewed people, this point could be seen as a
particularity of the Greater Lyon: the communes (like Rillieux or Vénissieux)
are much more flexible on this level. The fact is that the greatest part of the
projects of the estates of Minguettes and Ville Nouvelle has a significant
founding from the Greater Lyon, so the urban actors have to deal with this
bureaucratic question. Paradoxically, the founding question was also pointed
out as a success factor, because of the importance of the subsidies on the
urban issues.
Some success and fails factors, related to the questions of ‘demolition
and rebuilding’ (as a part of the Borloo Law) were also identified. In regard to
the success ones, we could mention the decrease of the rental loads: indeed,
the lack of elevators and the improvement of the insulation, through solar
energy experiments, could reduce the costs. The residential mobility inside the
10
district is another success factor: according to the agent of development, in
charge for the neighbourhood of Armstrong, more than 80 per cent of the
inhabitants of a demolished tower have chosen to be relocated within the
district. Finally, the implication of the population on the questions regarding
the future of the neighbourhood was mentioned as the third success factor.4
However, some aspects were also pointed out as fail factors. Among them: the
excessive publicity, related to the demolitions; as mentioned before, the loss
reference marks for the inhabitants; as well as the question of the destruction
of buildings, which are in good conditions (some of them were only built in
1971).
According to the project supervisor, in charge for the sector of La Ville
Nouvelle, in Rillieux-la-Pape, the construction of the project is the most
essential phase, regarding to the urban planning policies: ‘it is necessary to
see if the questions were answered, before starting the execution (…); if some
points couldn’t be solved, we will certainly have to face to big problems’.
The last fail factor evocated concerns the gap between the offer and the
demand of social housings. Actually, some associations revealed that Greater
Lyon needs to build 45,000 dwellings each year to get a balance between offer
and demand. Moreover with the Borloo Law, a new problem appeared. With
the numerous programmes of demolition within the agglomeration, completed
by this recurrent lack, in a short time, there will be a problem of relocation.
According to the ideology of social mix within these estates, the new buildings
are shared between renters and co-owners. But, for poor people who could not
become owners, they will have to leave outside of Greater Lyon to find a cheap
apartment. Within Greater Lyon, some technicians are aware of this
complicated situation if the communes of West Lyon (rich communes) do not
build some social dwellings.
4.2.6 The integration of health programmes
In this policy, the prevention does not appear as a priority and is not often
mentioned in the council contracts. At the communal level, the actors have a
role of coordination between the different actors. But each actor has its
preoccupation. For example the department leads many actions of prevention
against cancer. The regional council fights against mother and childhood
welfare. The difficulty is to lay down common orientations and make them by
all. For example some doctors do not want to join with others about the
problem of drug-addiction because the drug addicts are not a good image for
the customers.
The technical installations as regards health are important and varied.
The French services are powerful for the treatment of pathologies with cares.
Some associations, as the Roger Vailland Social Centre (Vénissieux), have carried out
different workshops on the town planning issues: the project called ‘Hier, aujourd’hui,
demain’ (yesterday, today, tomorrow), focused on the memory of the district
Armstrong, proposes several activities to the inhabitants.
4
11
But the difficulties concern the pathologies in connection with the problems of
public health, practices of life and behaviours with risk. These aspects can be
treated in a policy of prevention. But the investments to do prevention are
trifling.
There is an important documentation about the health but the actors
think that this support is not adapted to the population. The population does
not read a lot or ca not read the French language. And the population is not
projected in the future. The habitants have others problems and they do not
analyse their behaviours in order to know if they incur some risks.
4.3
Debate of the success and fail factors of the policies applied
This debate has concerned the members of the restate research and other
researchers working about urban and social policies (interviews or articles).
Actually, the long-term of the public policy towards these estates allows us to
have a judgment on the new policy held on the Borloo Law.
Currently, the programme for urban renewal act,5 the so-called Borloo
Act, is based on a very large financial involvement: about 30 billion euros for 5
years. In order to regenerate neighbourhoods in decline, the programme is
founded, on the one hand, on a physical transformation of this type of estate
by demolishing blocks, opening neighbourhoods to the other parts of cities,
and, on the other hand, by generating economic activities and creating jobs in
relation with free tax areas inside and around the very large estates.
This new orientation of the urban policy is translated within two types of
analysis. Some researchers (Lelévrier, 2004, for instance) think the Borloo’s
policy is a new conception of urban regeneration policies. Since more than 20
years, the urban programmes were focused on two main issues: an
improvement of the physical aspects (environment and buildings) and a
sustainable policy of social inclusion both. The urban solidarity6 act has been
voted under the socialist government (1997-2002) and it is the beginning of
the transition. The Borloo’s policy is the real implementation of this new issue
where urban reintegration is above all a physical treatment, with an economic
involvement, not really a social inclusion one. For other researchers, there is
no a real gap between Borloo’s practices and previous ones. They consider the
last acts as a general evolution since the 1980s, maybe in relation to the
relative inefficiency of former programmes. Therefore, currently, that last
programme seems useful to transform neighbourhoods in decline.
Actually, French urban policy started a new orientation by introducing
other new partners (private ones) and clearly oriented toward the demolition of
the estates and the economical development. All the funding given by the state
concerns these two aspects. For example, the responsibility of the demolition is
5
6
Act 2003-710 voted August 1st, 2003.
Act 2000-1208 voted December 13, 2000.
12
in the hands of three parts (ANRU)7: the state, the housing corporations and
the federation of employers. The local actors have been taken away from this
organisation: the structure is now top-down and to get funds needs to conform
the programmes to this structure. In an interview, the mayor of Rillieux-laPape talked about the problems with this structure with the project concerning
the demolition and the reconstruction of buildings in La Ville Nouvelle. This
structure has refused the project of reconstruction because the commune
wanted to have 60 per cent of social housings and 40 per cent of private
housings. The actors of the ANRU preferred the inversion. As the commune
wants to have funds for the urban project, they have accepted the argument of
the ANRU.
With this national structure, we can admit the changes in the local
running towards large housing estates in decline.
5
General conclusion
5.1
Judgement on possible fields of generalisation
A possible field of generalisation is linked with the policies related to urban
policies and large housing estates in particular. First, the key actors
interviewed insist on the necessity to give a good start to a project. Wellplanned guidelines are required and the quality of the professionals in charge
of the project is considered as a central point at this level. Secondly, there is
also a strong need in the definition of the territorial scale of actions. Policies
are mainly defined at a national level and they have to be adapted to the local
situations.
5.2
Suggestions for items to be targeted or to be avoided in
policies, programmes and projects
Items to be avoided
Many actions have not to be stricto sensu avoided, but improved. Yet, one
point has been firmly considered as to be avoided: the question of the
budgetary planning when it does not take into account the whole action. The
financial difficulties during the project of Démocratie (Les Minguettes,
Vénissieux), in the 1990s, were mentioned to illustrate this point: ‘when the
actions had started, the founding had to be stopped because of the problems
between public and deprived financers: only the demolitions could been
achieved, nothing was rebuilt (…); today, this territory is an urban wasteland’
said the director of urban planning, responsible for the commune of
Vénissieux.
‘Agence Nationale de Rénovation Urbaine’ (urban and national renovation structure)
created with the Borloo Law.
7
13
Items to be targeted
Many actions were quoted as to be targeted. A few of them can be put in relief.
 Public space is a key factor in terms of requalification and, overall,
maintenance (reshaping of large green spaces and parking areas).
 Develop easy access to all services, especially sporting, cultural, leisure,
education, social equipments.
 Financial help should be concentrated on a few sites to be more efficient
and to confirm their derogatory character. Perimeter logics should replace
general decisions, especially in concerning the social integration via the
educative system as said by various advices from the Council of State. The
republican values should also be restored via the reinforced state authority
and principles.
 But the main target seems to be the evaluation of the urban policies. Very
often, the urban contracts8 combine both a display of values and a
programme of actions, a sort of catalogue which does not tell what has to
be realised and when, and what is really relevant. This hazy way has been
criticised a lot of times as it is very difficult to valuate the policies, at the
end. Yet, more imprecise are the objectives, more necessary is the
evaluation, as to prepare the debate between the various actors. In France,
this is a recurrent problem because even if a traditional science about public
policies analysis and evaluation exists, the one concerning the ‘politique de
la ville’ is more complex. In fact, during the 1980s and the beginning of the
1990s, the global policy has been often evaluated (Lévy, 1987; Donzelot
and Estèbe, 1992), the orientation of the policy did not really change. A
decree signed in 1990 defines the objectives of such an evaluation: ‘The
evaluation of the social and urban policies consists on assessing the
outcomes and the spill-over effects of the programmes implemented on the
one hand, and analysing the legal, financial and technical means, which
have been used for these actions on the other hand.’9 Among researchers
first and national politicians and technicians too, appeared contestations
about this policy. The main argument is: how can the state continue to
finance these programmes, which concern more and more estates (1300 in
1995), and without getting obvious results.
The actual government has changed this orientation and seems to be aware of
these opinions, in reality more to justify the disengagement of the state in the
social field. By using the argument that the costs of these actions are more
important than their results, they will probably stop the plan of urban contracts
in 2006 and re-orient the programmes just towards demolition and economic
Formal document signed by all the partners for 6 years and evaluated at the end of
the contract.
9
Decree concerning the evaluation of public policies, 22 January 1990.
8
14
development. To evaluate, these new actions, the recent Borloo’s Act
advocates to take ‘precise and measurable targets’ and an observatory should
be created. But actually the risk is to produce only simple statistical data
without real advice about the carried out policies.
15
References
Cour des Comptes (2002) Rapport au Président de la République [Report to the
President of the Republic] Direction des journaux officiels, Paris.
Donzelot, J. and Estèbe, P. (1994) L’Etat animateur. Essai sur la politique de la
ville [The leadership of the state. Essay on urban policy] Le Seuil, Paris.
Lelévrier, C. (2004) Que reste-t-il du projet social de la politique de la ville?
[What remains of the social programme within the urban policy?], in:
Esprit, March-April, pp. 65-77.
Lévy, F. (1987) Bilan. Perspectives des contrats de développement social des
quartiers [Assessment. Future of the social neighbourhoods contracts]
Report from the President of the Republic, Paris.
Sueur, J.-P. (1998) Demain la ville [Tomorrow the city], Report from the
minister of employment and solidarity.
Trigueiro, M. (2004) Les rôles attribués aux espaces publics et à leurs
constituants dans les stratégies de renouvellement urbain [The role of
public spaces and their components in the strategies of urban renewal],
PhD Thesis in development, directed by N. Commerçon and M.
Zimmermann.
16
List of people interviewed













Responsible of Union-HLM, in charge of the south-east of France
Catholic priest, in charge of the Rillieux parish, Rillieux-la-Pape
Responsible for the economic development and the insertion, Greater Lyon
Project supervisor, in charge of the sector of La Ville Nouvelle, in Rillieux-laPape, Greater Lyon
Agent of development, responsible for the sector of Armstrong, in Les
Minguettes, Vénissieux
Responsible Lyon Métropole Innovante, Greater Lyon
Responsible of the social aspects of the Urban Agency, Greater Lyon
Director of the urban planning department of the commune of Vénissieux
Social assistant, Centre Social Roger Vailland, Les Minguettes, Vénissieux
Responsible of the service of social action and solidarity, Rillieux-la-Pape
Director of the ‘OPAC du Rhône’, responsible of social housing rentals and
social housing programmes
Director of the Vénissieux Agency of the ‘OPAC du Rhône’
Responsible of social services of the school inspectorate of the Rhône
17