Since the late 1980s, São Paulo has served as a prime testing ground for urban planning tools. Successive municipal administrations across the political spectrum have implemented large-scale urban regeneration projects, designating special zones within which specific regulations apply. More flexible building regulations and easier access to private investment are among the principles intended to drive the rapid regeneration and transformation of land and its uses, as well as the funding of social housing. These measures have proved ineffective in countering the immense socio-spatial inequalities that characterise Brazilian cities. On the contrary, they contribute to conflictual situations and to the exclusion of a section of the population from access to decent housing.  

In 2016, a new urban intervention project (PIU) was proposed to the local council by a Brazilian multinational company that owns land in the Vila Leopoldina neighbourhood, in the western part of São Paulo. This urban regeneration project immediately sparked a conflict between three groups of stakeholders with deep roots in the neighbourhood: the private sector, comprising the long-established economic and financial elite that has shaped Brazil’s patrimonialist social structure; upper-middle-class residents, a small local elite who have more recently settled in secure high-rise apartment blocks; and communities of poor residents, denied access to decent housing. 

Drawing on field research in São Paulo and an online analysis of social media and public consultations, this thesis traces the origins of the conflict and examines the forms of mobilisation and the spaces in which they take place, with a particular focus on built environment. It posits that this territorialised conflict centred on an urban planning instrument (the PIU) is indicative of both the social structures of Brazilian society and the heritage-oriented urban development characteristic of Brazil’s major cities. To demonstrate this, the thesis analyses and compares the territorialised moral economies of the three groups of actors involved in the conflict. 

Composition of the jury

• Marie-Hélène Bacqué, Professor, University of Paris-Ouest (Rapporteur)
• Agnès Deboulet, Professor, University of Paris 8 (Examiner)
• Ana Fernandes, Professor, Federal University of Bahia (Rapporteur)
• Sylvy Jaglin, Professor, Gustave Eiffel University (Joint Supervisor)
• Ozan Karaman, Research Fellow, CNRS (Joint PhD supervisor)
• João Sette Whitaker Ferreira, Professor, University of São Paulo (Joint Supervisor)

For the past fifteen years or so, cities have been grappling with the rise of digital technology. This issue has been placed on the agenda not only by public sector bodies, which feel more or less compelled to embrace the modernity of the ‘smart city’, but also by a wide range of actors outside the traditional urban sphere, who see economic opportunities in it. This thesis is based on a study conducted in the cities of Nice, Rennes and Montpellier. It examines the effects of digital technology on the dynamics of collective action and on the links between policy and politics.

A detailed analysis of how local authorities have taken ownership of the process shows that the emphasis on communication often outweighs concrete achievements; nevertheless, the digital shift is nonetheless causing significant disruption, not only by upending established practices but also, and above all, by raising new questions about the very foundations of their work. The study then shows that behind the highly standardised rhetoric, different trajectories and priorities are emerging across the three regions, whilst the contours of a distinctly French trajectory for metropolitan areas in their relationship with digital technology are also becoming apparent.

Finally, the thesis highlights the rise of the platform in the digital age, whether in the practices, discourses or imaginations of those involved. It reveals that this development simultaneously heralds a break with the model of the networked city that has dominated our imaginations for the past 150 years, and the thesis explores the political consequences of this shift.

Members of the jury

• Nicolas Douay, University Professor, Université Grenoble Alpes (rapporteur)
• Patrick Le Galès, Research Director at the CNRS, Professor at Sciences Po Paris (rapporteur)
• Cécile Maisonneuve, Chair of La Fabrique de la Cité
• Antoine Picon, Research Director, École Nationale des Ponts ParisTech (PhD supervisor)
• François-Mathieu Poupeau, Research Director at the CNRS, Professor at École des Ponts ParisTech
• Antoinette Rouvroy, Senior Research Fellow at the National Fund for Scientific Research, Faculty of Law, University of Namur, Belgium

Due to their wide range of professional and cultural opportunities, European cities are becoming increasingly attractive. As a result, land use and development in their central areas are intensifying. At the same time, peri-urban areas continue to expand, creating fragmented rural-urban environments. Indeed, rural-urban sprawl is one of the greatest challenges to achieving sustainable development in Europe and beyond, and planning has a fundamental role to play in addressing this challenge.

As processes such as urban sprawl and densification intertwine with the development of transport infrastructure, discussions on mobility are becoming increasingly common. This thesis therefore examines the role of planning in coordinating densification and mobility strategies to address the challenges of rural-urban sprawl and sustainable development in major European urban regions. More specifically, it assesses how successive generations of transport-urbanisation planning have been conceptualised in relation to, or in conflict with, the context of the rural-urban regions (RURs) of Paris and Rome.

Through this assessment, this thesis aims (1) to put new developments into perspective in order to compare and identify patterns and changes; (2) to understand whether or not these measures have effectively reduced urban sprawl and the role of the concepts of compactness and density in these contexts; and (3) to understand whether or not the discourses and narratives underlying planning practice have had an effect, and the underlying forces behind these outcomes.

Composition of the jury:

• Greet De Block, Professor, University of Antwerp, Examiner
• Laurent Devisme, University Professor, École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Nantes, Rapporteur
• Xavier Desjardins, University Professor, Sorbonne University, Rapporteur
• Martine Drozdz, CNRS Research Fellow, Maison Française d’Oxford / CNRS, Examiner
• Massimo Moraglio, Senior Researcher, Technische Universität Berlin, Co-supervisor
• Arnaud Passalacqua, University Professor, Université Paris-Est Créteil, Examiner
• Nathalie Roseau, University Professor, École nationale des ponts et chaussées, PhD supervisor

Our approach is to position ourselves within the context of the energy transition. Indeed, environmental issues such as air pollution, global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels are at the heart of today’s major debates. The energy transition is therefore necessary in order to mitigate the effects of consumption, the real-world impacts of which are devastating on a global scale.

It is in this context that the building sector emerges as a major contributor to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This research therefore aims to model the energy consumption patterns of residential buildings following a renovation project. The study of residential buildings’ energy behaviour remains both poorly understood and underestimated in models. This difficulty stems from two obstacles: a lack of usable data on households’ actual consumption; and the complexity involved in conducting surveys on their domestic energy behaviour. The aim is to study, analyse and dynamically model the behaviour of residential buildings, taking into account the interactions between space, households and consumption. It will focus on the impact of the dynamics of household energy behaviour on the building’s final energy consumption.

A survey will be conducted before and after the renovation, involving 62 households living in Noisiel. It will collect socio-demographic data on the households, details of their characteristics and, above all, information on their behaviour. The data from these surveys, together with data from the sensors installed as part of the André project, will be analysed using various statistical models.

Public policy aimed at stimulating regional economic development is increasingly focused on promoting innovation and the knowledge economy, both of which are seen as essential for enhancing the competitiveness of both businesses and regions. This thesis examines a French policy introduced in 2004 within this framework of competitiveness: the competitiveness clusters policy.

This initiative, situated at the intersection of industrial and spatial planning policies, aims to foster innovative and collaborative practices among the business, higher education and research sectors within a given region through the establishment of ‘competitiveness clusters’. We focus on a hitherto little-studied aspect of these competitiveness clusters: their impact on regional governance. Indeed, based on a comparative analysis of six case studies from the south-west, we show that the clusters appear to function as intermediary structures, certainly promoting collaborative action between economic and scientific actors within the same region, but also and above all between political and administrative actors who were previously unaccustomed to working together. In this respect, the cluster policy is transforming the modes of regional public management.

The thesis therefore explores two aspects: firstly, the way in which the State conceives of competitiveness clusters as new spaces that revitalise interactions between economic and political-administrative actors (from different sectors and at different levels); and secondly, the way in which these clusters emerge and consolidate as fully-fledged entities with their own functioning and a role to play in territorial governance. The case of competitiveness clusters thus allows us to revisit the concept of territory, which no longer coincides with the definition of a constituency. Drawing on the work of Claude Raffestin, we consider clusters as discontinuous territories, organised in networks, each developing its own specific functioning ‘in the pursuit of the greatest possible autonomy given the system’s resources’.

Members of the jury

• Alain Bourdin, Professor Emeritus, Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée, Examiner
• Gilles Crague, Research Director, CIRED/École des Ponts ParisTech, Director
• Christophe Demazière, Professor, François Rabelais University, Tours; Rapporteur
• Marie-Pierre Lefeuvre, Professor, François Rabelais University, Tours; Examiner
• André Torre, Research Director, INRA; Rapporteur

Since the 1990s, transnational financial investors have been investing in Mexico City’s commercial property markets, as they have in those of most major cities in ‘emerging’ countries. These new players are helping to drive the city’s spatial expansion and its development on a regional scale.

This specific contribution to Mexico City’s urban development can be explained in two ways: on the one hand, the distinctive features of transnational financial investment are explained by the restrictive internal workings of the transnational financial network, which is organised around concepts and tools defined outside Mexico; on the other hand, their concentration on the outskirts of the central state of the Mexico City metropolitan area – the Distrito Federal (DF) – can be understood through an analysis of the historical development of the various territories that make up the metropolitan area.

Within the DF, the entry of transnational financial investors into property markets is hindered by rival developers and investors who are part of closed social networks, characterised by a community-based approach and a long-standing system of favours. In the periphery, by contrast, transnational financial investors find it easier to enter property markets, which are embedded in more recently urbanised areas where political and economic resources are more dispersed.

This thesis thus seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which the financialisation of property markets and urban development takes place in a Latin American metropolis such as Mexico City. It demonstrates that the spread of practices, concepts and a new division of labour, promoted by the transnational financial network, is the subject of a power struggle with other, pre-existing and competing ways of developing and investing in property.

Members of the jury

• Olivier CREVOISIER, Professor, University of Neuchâtel, rapporteur.
• Patrick LE GALÈS, Director of Research, Sciences Po Paris, rapporteur.
• Ludovic HALBERT, Research Fellow, Université Paris-Est, Latts, co-supervisor of a PhD thesis.
• Catherine PAQUETTE, Research Fellow, French National Research Institute for Development.
• Vincent RENARD, Research Director, IDDRI – Sciences Po, PhD supervisor.
• Vicente UGALDE, Research Fellow, El Colegio de México.

Sustainable development is becoming a tool for urban planning, leading in particular to the establishment of ‘eco-neighbourhoods’ in many European cities. The aim of our thesis is to analyse the development of eco-neighbourhoods in the Paris region based on two case studies (the Clichy Batignolles ZAC and the Place de Rungis ZAC). The aim is, on the one hand, to show how the concept of the sustainable city is emerging and, on the other hand, how this concept gives rise to architectural standards.

We hypothesise that eco-neighbourhoods form part of a broader concept of the sustainable city, depending on how they are developed, and that the construction of such developments serves to legitimise urban policies rather than to bring about an ecological transition in city management.

To understand the process of developing eco-neighbourhoods, how residents engage with them and how they are integrated into the city, our research draws on theoretical analyses aimed at deconstructing the core concepts of the ‘sustainable city’ and identifying the network of stakeholders involved in the development of eco-neighbourhoods. We also carry out observations and semi-structured interviews with planners, architects and residents of the two study sites.

Drawing on our two case studies, we will explain how, as a result of prescriptive local policies, eco-neighbourhoods contribute to the creation of a homogenised city. This homogenisation is driven by the architectural and urban form of these neighbourhoods.

50 million Europeans face financial difficulties in heating, cooking or lighting their homes. Households that go without these services due to insufficient income, and which spend a significant proportion of their budget on these expenses, are in a situation of energy poverty. European legislation requires Member States to establish policies to measure and tackle the problem. This is a complex objective because energy poverty lies at the intersection of a range of factors addressed by separate sectoral policies: energy prices, the energy efficiency of housing, and social support.

This thesis examines the conditions under which the issue of energy vulnerabilities emerges on national and local public agendas, drawing on an approach from urban political ecology. The comparative study is conducted in two cities (Porto and Barcelona) where the issue is significant and addressed in different ways. Our analysis aims to examine the factors that combine to create situations of vulnerability and bring them to the fore as a public issue. It focuses on legislation, local innovations and media coverage of the issue. We contrast these forms of collective action with a study of the concrete conditions of energy vulnerability experienced by vulnerable households supported by social services and charitable organisations.

The main finding of the thesis is that situations of energy vulnerability are politicised, involving both new and traditional actors in energy governance and giving rise to two types of response. We also show how the activism of community groups is giving rise to a right to energy, which is not enshrined in national legislation and which, under pressure from new social movements, is becoming an imperative for local authorities. Finally, we demonstrate the roll-out of an intervention model for households aimed at reducing consumption to lower bills and limit the number of unpaid energy bills. This experimental and low-cost model is of interest to civil society organisations, local authorities and energy suppliers, even though for vulnerable households it represents a continuation of their efforts to reduce their energy bills.

Members of the jury

• Stefan Bouzarovski, Professor, University of Manchester (Rapporteur)
• Olivier Coutard, Research Director, CNRS (LATTS) (PhD supervisor)
• Sylvy Jaglin, University Professor, Université Paris Est Marne-la-Vallée (Chair of the jury)
• Hélène Reigner, University Professor, Aix-Marseille University (Rapporteur)
• Jonathan Rutherford, Research Fellow, École des Ponts ParisTech (co-supervisor of the thesis)
• David Saurí, University Professor, Autonomous University of Barcelona

The phenomenon of ‘open-air drug scenes’, where drug users gather and consume drugs in public spaces, is nothing new. For nearly thirty years, Paris has been grappling with this issue, particularly in the north-east of the city – an area where the majority of users are highly marginalised crack users. Since the early 2000s, drug users, although concentrated in the north-east, have been constantly on the move following evictions and police interventions. This has an impact on the ability of each group to organise itself, defend its interests and claim spaces as their own. More recently, conflicts between crack users and residents of Stalingrad and the Jardins d’Éole have highlighted the tensions between different users of public space.

The three-year “anti-crack” plan launched in June 2019 brings together a number of stakeholders, but despite this dedicated initiative, the State and the local council have been unable to agree on solutions. This public controversy is taking on a new form. To date, the only consensus that has been reached is that what has been done over the last thirty years is not working. Zero-tolerance policies, calming public spaces with a reinforced police presence, arresting dealers, rest areas, consumption rooms… the debate is wide-ranging. These issues are particularly relevant today, when there are several urban regeneration projects underway in the neighbourhoods most affected by open-air drug use.

This thesis focuses on two main areas. The first is to analyse urban policy in response to crack use in public spaces and how different stakeholders can make their voices heard (and which voices are taken into account?); the second is to examine the uses and appropriation of public spaces and the tensions that arise as a result.

The expansion of electricity, water and sanitation networks in developing cities is, in principle, complicated by the absence or shortcomings of urban planning. The methods used to provide utilities to informal settlements in Delhi and Lima are analysed here as socio-technical mechanisms that reveal the dynamics of urban development. In fact, on a day-to-day basis, companies install poles and pipes in unplanned neighbourhoods. Technical, social and institutional innovations make it possible to extend networks there; the lack of planning is therefore not an obstacle to infrastructure provision.

However, this process is suboptimal: the execution of works is disorganised, unpredictability hinders the development of strategies, and political directives can be contradictory. Such coordination shortcomings create uncertainties that are difficult for service providers to overcome. There are, nevertheless, promising avenues for intervention in unplanned neighbourhoods: alternative transport schemes exist that can be promoted; informal data and plans meet the need for knowledge about the city and would benefit from being utilised; and the design and preservation of the road network prove crucial to enabling coherent, gradual and sustainable urban consolidation.

An analysis of network expansion helps to identify key tools for public policy in developing cities, thereby offering new perspectives for urban planning to redevelop existing urban areas and strategically prepare for future urbanisation.

Against the backdrop of a recent surge of interest in the concept of transitional urbanism, this thesis examines how urban planning and property professionals are adopting approaches to the temporary occupation of space. Stemming from long-standing practices, temporary occupation projects are proliferating across the Greater Paris area within vacant sites and buildings earmarked for future urban development. A ‘hot’ and evolving topic, transitional urbanism is imbued with a variety of values and challenges by the stakeholders involved in these initiatives: property owners, local authorities, planners, developers and new professionals in the field of temporary occupation.

The main focus of this thesis is the transitional urban planning approach developed since its inception in 2015 by SNCF Immobilier, the organisation responsible for managing and developing the SNCF’s extensive land and property portfolio. Originally an experimental approach, transitional urban planning has become a new corporate activity, raising strategic and operational issues in the early stages of urban projects. Through ethnographic immersion within SNCF Immobilier and an empirical study of the implementation of these temporary projects, this thesis aims to investigate the company’s use of these approaches, the new difficulties they raise, and the values and challenges that employees associate with these projects. As a source of change within SNCF Immobilier, the development of transitional urbanism serves to illustrate, more broadly, the ongoing transformation of professional practices, modes of action and representations within the organisation. The operator’s thinking is influenced by its gradual integration into a new community of practice promoting transitional urbanism, which goes hand in hand with a renewal of its methods and its thinking regarding the long-term development of the city.

This research employs transitional urbanism as an analytical tool to contextualise the evolution of urban development practices, the transformation of urban spaces, and the changing roles of stakeholders in urban planning and the property sector.

Members of the jury

• Lauren Andres – Associate Professor, The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL (Rapporteur)
• Olivier Coutard – Research Director, CNRS (PhD supervisor)
• Laurent Devisme – Lecturer, ENSA Nantes (Rapporteur)
• Maria Gravari-Barbas – Professor, University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne
• Benoît Quignon – Director-General of Services for the City of Marseille (Guest member)
• Elsa Vivant – Senior Lecturer, Gustave Eiffel University (PhD supervisor)

With increasing urbanisation and a sharp rise in soil sealing, flooding has become more frequent in recent years, causing significant material damage and, in some cases, loss of life. In light of this, in the late 1980s, an environmentalist approach, according to the Technical Service for Urban Planning (STU, Reconciling Water and the City through Stormwater Management), involved ‘the search for systems to manage and control the water cycle in urban environments, and for appropriate urban forms’. This concept no longer presents stormwater management techniques as technical sanitation tools, but as fully-fledged, multifunctional urban infrastructure integrated into the city.
In this context, the implementation of these alternative stormwater management techniques no longer concerns solely network operators and the sanitation department, but also the departments responsible for green spaces, roads, sports facilities, and so on. However, whilst these departments incorporate stormwater retention, storage and infiltration structures into their infrastructure, they do not necessarily possess the expertise required for the upkeep and maintenance of such structures.
The aim of this thesis is therefore to understand the organisational challenges involved in the implementation of alternative stormwater management techniques within urban development projects.