The Pink City and researchers, a love story in the country of Jean Jaurès and Jean Tirole, the Toulousain Nobel Prize winner in economics in 2014? Fabrice Escaffre, geographer and lecturer at Jean-Jaurès University, participated in the monitoring committee of the local housing program (PLUI-H) set up by the metropolis: “We acted as experts, alongside design offices, organizations or technicians, does he remember. However, it would be very pretentious to say that all our recommendations on social diversity, connections or governance have been followed. »
At the end of June 2018, a land strategy was adopted unanimously during the city council: 7,000 housing units will be built per year, 35% of which will be social housing. With 50% direct project management of the sites, definition of the specifications, budget and work schedule. Karine Traval-Michelet, vice-president of Toulouse Métropole in charge of housing, then speaks “of a harmonization made possible after a titanic work carried out with the monitoring committee”, in which sit several academics.
“There is a real historic culture of exchange between universities, researchers and elected officials in Toulouse. Even if these relations come up against ideological, ethical or simply relational conflicts”, analyzes Pierre-Emmanuel Reymund, head of forecasting and innovation within the metropolis, who nevertheless says “blow in the ears of elected officials since 2003”. Toulouse Métropole, its 37 municipalities and 800,000 inhabitants, grows by 8,000 new inhabitants per year. It has a contingent of 130,000 students, the second largest in France after the Paris region, with all the projects that this implies in terms of transport, housing, economic development, ecological transition. All analyzes are therefore good to take.
Eleven proposals from researchers
In 2020, in full confinement coupled with the municipal campaign, Jean-Luc Moudenc, the mayor and president of the metropolis (Les Républicains), asks Jean Tirole to write a report on post-Covid-19. The Nobel Prize, already at work for Emmanuel Macron, hands over to Marion Guillou, former national president of the National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA). “ I accepted on the condition that the Occitanie region be a co-sponsor, to avoid any politicization and by imposing credible, authoritative personalities”, precise Mme Guillo. In October 2020, the sixteen members, including former astronaut Claudie Haigneré, climatologist Hervé Le Treut and former minister Geneviève Fioraso, submitted their eleven proposals for “Toulouse, territory of the future”. Will they be heard? “There is a follow-up to this report and we will draw inspiration from it on certain points”, assures Pierre-Emmanuel Reymund.
For the time being, only the proposal to develop the “student tourism” was retained. That of the creation of large industrial centers has been abandoned. “Too expensive and complicated”, regrets Mr. Reymund. Regrets, on another level, issued by Marc Ivaldi, director of studies at the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) and professor at Toulouse School of Economics (TSE), created by Jean Tirole. This transport specialist was “consulted several times on the third metro line, with interesting and transparent work but not necessarily listened to”. Its proposals on governance or the installation of an urban toll have, for example, been rejected.
On the other hand, Marie-Pierre Gleizes, professor at the Computer Science Research Institute of Toulouse (IRIT), is pleased: she has been leading the neOCampus project since 2013. On the site of the Paul-Sabatier University, it brings together eleven laboratories, under the leadership, among others, of the metropolis. The challenge ? “Building a connected, innovative, intelligent and sustainable campus for 38,000 students on 450,000 square meters of buildings. A city within the city, she summarizes. Jean-Luc Moudenc recalls for his part that “emblematic projects such as the Museum in 2008, the third metro line or the 100,000 trees plan are the result of the work of very high-level scientific committees”. Seekers included.
A development council chaired by a researcher
From 2013, while the status of the metropolises is changing, the Development Council (Codev) of the agglomeration is set up. A place of citizen expertise and debate headed by Marie-Christine Jaillet, sociologist, director of research at the CNRS. “We have worked on the policy of the city as a whole with the constant concern to make the problems more intelligible, to alert, to push the elected officials to take a step aside”, explains this expert in metropolitan developments, who is now scientific manager of Popsu Métropoles, the national platform for observing urban projects and strategies. Mobilities, management of urban densities, social mixes, approach to urban space, place of cycling, agile city… A concrete recommendation adopted by the Toulouse community? “The possibility offered to small businesses to access public markets”, undoubtedly retains Mme Jaillet.
For Pierre Cohen, former socialist mayor between 2008 and 2014, “if we manage to reduce the antagonisms between one and the other, we can produce a dynamic that serves the community”. The former city councilor had started a “work with the three university presidents to structure relations and bring about concrete projects”. Still living fruit of this will, Le Quai des savoirs, the long building of the Jules-Guesde alleys, formerly owned by the city and the faculty of medicine, renovated for 35 million euros. Opposite the tram terminus, completed during the same period, it hosts spaces dedicated to scientific culture and houses the Comue (community of universities and establishments), a body of the Federal University of Toulouse, bringing together the administration of three major universities.
In 2014, it was Jean-Luc Moudenc who, taking over the local and metropolitan reins, surrounded himself with academics to deal with major issues: law professor Jean-Michel Lattes in transport, neurologist François Chollet to health, the surgeon Daniel Rougé to social affairs. Third metro line, development of the Oncopole (this huge cancer institute) or management of social action are still on the desks of these vice-presidents today. “We would be fools not to rely on the university pool”, emphasizes Jean-Luc Moudenc. He admits to having “ consulted researchers a lot, informally, to think about technical and long-term projects”. And maintained the role of Codev, seizing it, in 2022, new reports on “heritage, urban-rural relations, the place for youth and that of women”.
This article was produced as part of a partnership with Popsu, the observation platform for urban projects and strategies.