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Numéro 99 décembre 2005

Intercommunalité et intérêt général

Gilles Novarina
The rise of consultation ; the case of a highway

The invocation of the public interest by government services, elected representatives at different levels, residents, users, and consuems unions rarely converges on a shared objective. The disputes about the highway between Grenoble and Sisteron shows that public consultation encourages the expression of different visions of the area. Public action is less about telling the general interest than organizing transparent and accessible public debate.

Cynthia Ghorra-Gobin
Environmental justice and public interest in the United states

During the Clinton administration, the environmental justice movement born from local struggles againt the creation of polluting facilities near black ghettos, was transformed by new regulations. The equity principle of those struggles can be met also in France in teritorial disputes under the aegis of intercommunal structures.

Hélène Harter
American metropolises and the invention of the public interest

At the end of the XIX century, the public interest became the main reference of reform-minded mayors. The growth of the urban areas showed the limits of the private system and gave place to new governement services offered on a metropolis scale.

Renaud Le Goix, Céline Loudier-Malgouyres
The private fabrication of public spaces in the United States

Since fifty years, public authorities have lowered their investment in urban areas. Towns have become patchworks of areas with different statuses.

Stéphane Sadoux
The public interest under testing in Great Britain

Since the Town Planning Act of 1947, the regulation of the allocation of land in great Britain has increasingly integrated the diversity of0000 participants in urban areas. Procedures implemented to ensure participation however have limited this diversity.

Claire Bénit
Spatial Justice in post-apartheid Johannesburg

Recent policies to reduce spatial segregation in the cities of South Africa are driven by two principles : equal access to municipal public services, and the participation of residents in the future of their communities. The negociated creation of new districts between black townships and white residential areas in Johannesburg brings together these two principles in a practical manner. Participatory democracy does not always follow these projects.

Sylvy Jaglin
Equality in question on the Cape

In the cities of South Africa, water, electricity, sanitation and waste management services have long been provided by municipal government corporations. Recent mergers of municipalities have forced a difficult coordination of service providers and charges. On the Cape, disputes relating to satndardisation have highlighted the question of equality of investment between areas.

Cécile Cuny
Competition between villages in Berlin-Brandenburg

After German reunification, the regional parliaments of Berlin and Brandenburg worked together to coordiante joint development initiatives. Part of this was due to a wish to reduce the difference between the economic attraction of Berlin and the relegation of the Brandenburg hinterland. Mergers of districts encouraged by the legislature were not always consistent with this objective.

Carine Péribois, Stéphane Roche
Land management and intercommunality in France and Belgium

Modern urbanisation has extended the spatial foundations of the local political scene. In Europe, intercommunal structures in towns do not offer a new framework for the expression of growing demands for participation in local decision-making. Geografical information, in its various public forms, now contributes to the construction of an image that allows for choice in shared housing.

Jean-Philippe Brouant
Intercommunality and local politics : A morganatic marriage

Traditionally a village responsibility, housing policy emerged several years ago as an intercommunal issue. The objectives of social balance and diversity in towns have led to new provisions for public intervention, the practical effectiveness of which still seems to be limited. An intercommunality that is highly inclusive in political terms results in its partners wishing to go beyond merely indirectly encouraging participation.

Philippe Hamman
Towards a cross-border public interest

The growth in the movement of goods and people across the borders of France, Germany and Luxembourg in recent times has forged multiple links between local communities. Through these links, a cross-border public interest is being designed. In this way, the public interest is being decentralised away from central government towards a common territorial good.

Rémy Le Saout
Waste collection in the city of Nantes

The city of Nantes in heavily involved in the movement for intercommunal mergers that empower cities on the Continent and elsewhere. Waste collection authorities are not concerned in the least that this new course will increase competition between services at the expense of the resulting advantages. An unsuccessful strike in 2003 was confirmation of the new power of communities over local services.

Frank Bachelet
High-ranking city officials

The knowledge of people who manage large cities is the poor relation of the science of local power. With an active approach to recruuitment, the new heads of municipal governance are polished coordinators integrated into the republican elite set. Their involvement in local affairs, however, remains suppressed by career considerations.

Jean-Christophe François, Franck Poupeau
Schools and residential areas

The tendency of residents in the more comfortable suburbs of Paris to avoid certain public schools is stronger than among residents in less well-to-do areas. Disparities between the social environment and the level of educational facilities, on the other hand, are less marked in outer suburban areas. Rules governing the distribution of state-run schools in an area thus assure a degree of republican equality for students living in less well-to-do areas, while at the same time increasing social competition in more prosperous suburbs.