Yoann Pérès: Reinventing Them: Negotiated Urban Planning in the Face of the Industrialisation of Project-Based Development – A Contextual Analysis of Professional Practices in Urban Development

This thesis in urban planning examines a public policy instrument designed to encourage the transfer of public and quasi-public land, which forms part of the wider trend towards negotiated urban planning: calls for innovative urban projects (APUI). These consultations have been the subject of much debate in academic and professional circles within urban planning, with some viewing them as a privatisation of planning, whilst others see them as a breath of fresh air in professional practice.

This thesis highlights how, for their initiators, APUIs function as instruments of remote governance despite the transfer of project management responsibilities to property developers, with ‘innovation’ helping to enlist the support of urban planning professionals. They constitute a response tailored to the circumstances of their initiators: evolving strategies for legitimising local government, a reduction in local authorities’ financial leeway, and the development of project-based approaches within contexts of fragmented governance. These consultations represent an attempt to modernise urban public action – and, by extension, public administrations. They temporarily reorient the operational logic of several professional sectors whose spheres of activity interact with one another.

To analyse the work currently underway, our analytical framework draws on various strands of sociological research: justification, translation, public action, management tools and activity. Drawing on ethnographic research, we highlight the challenges arising from the industrialisation of the ‘project mode’ and ‘innovation’ on the work of elected representatives, local public officials and project management assistants, from the launch of consultations through to the finalisation of winning property development projects: eventualisation and mobilisation, coordination challenges, and the legalisation and subsequent managerialisation of the public-private relationship. We highlight the pivotal role of artefacts in framing the activities of stakeholders. In doing so, we examine the reconfiguration of the tools, expertise and methods of operational urban planning driven by public initiative.

These findings provide broader insights into the changing priorities of professionals in the urban sector. We highlight an increase in media and networking activity, as well as a proliferation of intermediaries. These shifts call into question the meaning, resources and role assigned to expertise in shaping the relationship between public and private actors in the urban sector.

Composition of the jury

Véronique Biau – State-certified architect and urban planner (HDR), ENSA Paris-La Villette – LAVUE (rapporteur)
Alain Faure – Research Director, CNRS – PACTE (rapporteur)
Corinne Delmas – Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS
Laurent Devisme – Professor, ENSA Nantes – LAAU
Silvère Tribout – Senior Lecturer, University of Rennes 2 – ESO
Guillaume Tiffon – Professor, University of Evry Paris-Saclay – Pierre Naville Centre
Emilie Bajolet – Deputy Director of Consulting and Planning, AREP (guest member)
Elsa Vivant – Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS (supervisor)