Développement durable urbain et démocratie locale : des espaces de transactions tacites et multipolaires

In: Revue des sciences sociales, Band 47, Heft 1, S. 86-96

Abstract

Sustainable urban development and local democracy – tacit, multipolar areas of transactions.
This contribution examines the repertoire of sustainable urban development from the point of view of local democracy, which is often put forward as the cement between the environmental, economic, social and cultural domains of "sustainable" public action, in particular through inviting citizen participation. Based on the expectations, but also the "expectations of expectations" of all parties, without a sole hierarchical principle, these issues are upheld through tacit transactions between elected representatives and the technical and administrative services of local authorities, with the citizen in the background. The transactions are overlapped with multi-polar transactions with the "civil society" and inhabitants, within the frame of participatory instruments set up as centres of intermediation. Due to this transactional approach, some distance can therefore be taken in relation to the usual discourse on the "sustainable town".