Thesis supervisor
: Elsa Vivant
This thesis in urban planning investigates a public policy instrument that encourages the sale of public and semi-public land as an extension of negotiated urban planning approaches: calls for innovative urban projects (APUI). These consultations have been the subject of much debate in academic and professional urban planning circles, with some seeing them as a privatization of development and others as a breath of fresh air in professional practices.
This thesis highlights how, for their initiators, APUIs operate as instruments of remote governance despite a transfer of project management to real estate operators, with "innovation" helping to enlist urban professionals. They constitute an appropriate response to the contingencies of their initiators: the evolution of local government legitimization strategies, the reduction of local authorities' financial leeway, and the development of project-based approaches in contexts of fragmented governance. These consultations constitute an attempt to modernize urban public action—and, correlatively, public administrations. They temporarily reorient the logic of action of several professional worlds whose areas of activity interact with each other.
To analyze the work in progress, our analytical framework draws on different currents of sociological research: justification, translation, public action, management tools, and activity. Based on ethnographic research, we highlight the challenges resulting from the industrialization of the "project mode" and "innovation" on the activities of elected officials, local public officials, and project management assistants from the launch of consultations to the finalization of winning real estate projects: eventization and enlistment, coordination issues, juridification, and then managerialization of the public-private relationship. We highlight the essential role of artifacts in framing the activities of stakeholders. In doing so, we examine the recomposition of the tools, know-how, and methods of operational urban planning in public initiatives.
These challenges provide us with broader insight into the evolution of the values promoted by urban development professionals. We highlight an increase in media and networking activity and a proliferation of intermediaries. These shifts call into question the meaning, resources, and place given to expertise in the management of the relationship between public and private actors in urban development.
Keywords
: CIFRE; Ethnography; Project management assistance; Greater Paris; Reinventing Paris; Call for projects; Call for innovative urban projects; Innovation; Land transfer; Public-private partnership; Negotiated urban planning; Urban planner.
Thesis defense on Friday, October 6, 2023
Year of thesis registration
: 2018
Doctoral school
: VTT – City, Transportation, and Territories
Composition of the jury
Véronique Biau – State Architect-Urban Planner HDR, ENSA Paris-La Villette – LAVUE (rapporteur)
Alain Faure – Director of Research, CNRS – PACTE (rapporteur)
Corinne Delmas
– Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS
Laurent Devisme – Professor, ENSA Nantes – LAAU
Silvère Tribout – Senior Lecturer, Rennes 2 University – ESO
Guillaume Tiffon – Professor, University of Evry Paris-Saclay – Pierre Naville Center
Emilie Bajolet – Deputy Director of Consulting and Programming, AREP (guest member)
Elsa Vivant
– Professor, Gustave Eiffel University – LATTS (thesis supervisor)