Métropoles (Sep 2008)
Les agences d’urbanisme en France
Abstract
This article, which is devoted to those forty year old but poorly understood organisations, the planning agencies (“agences d’urbanisme”) in France, is intended to be programmatic and exploratory in character. Its purpose is, therefore, to present a series of reflections on the subject that might be taken up by researchers in different disciplines. The intention is not to limit its remarks to a narrowly defined series of problems such as the political sociology of expertise, the history or anthropology of the planning profession or even the local histories of urban policy implementation in the particular areas where agencies are located. Like the conference organised in Lille in February 2007, this article, which was one of the products of the conference, takes up the opportunity to investigate again the status and recognition granted to urban studies in France. It argues in favour of work which takes planning agencies as its objective, while at the same time offering the results of recent research.
