6533b871fe1ef96bd12d2151

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Sustainable policies in the Parisian Metropolis through environmental geography

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International audience; A patchwork of local sustainable policies (Agendas 21, Climate Plans, urban sustainable planning) appears in the Parisian metropolis for a few years. Are they able to guide the Parisian metropolis to sustainability? How to studies those practices in geography? This paper belongs to environmental geography. On the one hand, the approach is based on the concept of urban milieu, sketching a holistic and systemic perspective. On the other hand, the approach takes place in territorial paradigm, studying stakeholders' actions at different spatial scales and political levels. Methods include action-research with local authorities, interviews with stakeholders, street' surveys with more than 2000 people, participating observation in consultation meetings. This paper focuses on two territories: Paris City and Plaine Commune, a local authority near Paris, concerning a poor suburban area of almost 400 000 inhabitants. Results show that convincing local sustainable policies, in their project dimension, are conducted by local authorities responding to national incentives. Whereas real citizens appear to be interested in those projects, they don't appropriate consultation meetings: bottom up dynamics do not really exist. On a technical point of view, local authorities face a range of difficulties to put their projects in practice. Those difficulties are linked to exterior dynamics of "unsustainabilty", like real estate prices. On a political point of view, local authorities negotiate, even struggle against superior levels and moreover national projects for the capital: viability of local sustainable projects is often dependent from projects conducted by a superior level.