Definitions and Redefinitions of Urban Sustainability: A Bibliometric Approach

This paper investigates evolutions in and alternatives to the “sustainable development” paradigm and examines these new trends. It offers a review of the social science literature that focuses on the language of the “sustainable city” used by researchers and experts in sociology, geography and urban studies since 2009. First, five main variants of “sustainable city” discourses are evidenced by the statistical and lexical analyses: the “recyclable city”, the “compact city”, the “green city”, the “just city” and the “participatory city”. They are often in conflict and subject to debate. Then, four main “alternatives” are identified: degrowth, resilience, sustainable transformation and transition. Yet they remain specific to restricted sectors or characterized by a binary vision.

La prise en main de l’énergie par les collectivités territoriales : freins et moteurs

Ce texte présente les résultats de deux recherches sur les facteurs jouant un rôle dans le processus de prise en main de la question énergétique au niveau territorial. Adoptant une double approche empirique (un questionnaire et des entretiens semi-directifs), nous avons analysé le rôle de plusieurs facteurs possibles, soit offert comme explication par la littérature soit comme éléments d’explications dans nos deux terrains, pour déterminer ceux qui jouent un rôle de ceux qui sont inopérants. La première section présente le contexte et la seconde les résultats d’une enquête, tandis que la troisième propose une comparaison thématique avec des cas étrangers (en Grande-Bretagne, en Allemagne et Autriche) analysés dans le cadre du projet pour le Conseil Français de l’Énergie.

Leisure mobility and individuals’ relationship to the living environment: a comparison between the Paris and Rome urban regions.

In this article we examine how (alongside with other factors) the relationship that individuals have to their living environment affects their leisure mobility. We first elaborate a typology (comprising 5 types) of individuals according to their stated relationship to their living environment. Using a statistical approach, we then show that this typology partially explains inter-individual differences in leisure mobility, after taking into account other socioeconomic and spatial explanatory factors: income, level of education, profession, residential location (esp. density of residential area) and demographic characteristics. This statistical argument is complemented with a qualitative study of the meanings given by individuals to their living environments and leisure mobility practices, which ultimately contributes to better understand the drivers of leisure mobility and to emphasize in particular the notion of compensatory mobility. A given urban context may accomodate very different practices and very diverse life projects and the approach developed in the paper has allowed to move away from deterministic explanations for leisure mobility.

The Publicness Paradox: Young People And The Production Of Parochial Places

Many assumptions underlie a concept such as public space but seldom are they made explicit in the public debate. In this paper I will investigate what constitutes ‘publicness’ by building on research with young people hanging out in public space in Brussels. I will argue that young people, by meeting in public space, produce parochial places (Lofland, 1998). By doing so they transgress certain rules in public space. I will argue that the paradox embedded in ‘publicness’ is that in order for young people to truly be in public they have to break or bend the rules of that public; a person can only be in space when that space becomes of that person. The question then becomes if these forms of parochiality allow us to overcome the boundaries between people and communities, and between public and private.

Une petite lorgnette pour élargir la focale : questionner le droit à la ville des femmes âgées à partir de leurs pratiques des promenades balnéaires

L’article part des modalités de rencontres entre les personnes âgées, les villes balnéaires et les promenades de bord de mer pour questionner le concept de « droit à la ville ». Son usage est élargi au vieillissement, un enjeu social devenu majeur mais qui était absent chez Lefebvre. Largement investies par les femmes âgées dans les communes littorales, les promenades balnéaires sont des ressources pour le maintien de leur présence en ville. L’accès à ces espaces d’interactions sociales en fait un cadre favorable à l’inclusion sociale et un garant du droit à la ville à l’heure de la vieillesse.