Lhe idea of a “productive city” is not new. But cities today find themselves required to develop planning strategies that respond as much to the imperatives of reindustrialization as to the challenges of social and environmental sustainability. But what administrative and strategic tools do they have to achieve this?
A study of the Urban Construction and Architecture Plan (PUCA) and the La Fabrique de l’industrie reflection platform analyzes the developments of Bordeaux and Rennes, as well as those of Vienna, Berlin and Turin (Developing the productive city, by Flavie Ferchaud, Alexandre Blein, Joël Idt, Daphné Lecointre, Flore Trautmann and Hélène Beraud, Presses des Mines, 2024). In these cities we find classic land and real estate interventions, but they also explore new territorial management which aims for the emergence of productive and ecologically resilient urban ecosystems.
The links between city, commerce and production are old and have often been recomposed mutually. The medieval town thus grants artisan guilds installation privileges to obtain local production of quality goods. Industrial revolutions disrupt relationships with the city, favoring the concentration of men and machines, as well as office real estate and urban transport. Cities are born around factories, or they move away into a peri-urban area that consumes land and travel. Separate zoning of productive and residential activities becomes dominant.
Industrial activities and services
In response, cities like Bordeaux or Rennes have strived to reattract industrial activities and services by better integrating them with residential and social real estate. But, today, the imperatives of zero artificialization of soils, respect for biodiversity and reduction of environmental impacts require the reclassification of old areas, the recovery of all possible land or the dissociation between ownership and use to limit the necessary investments. .
These constraints push cities to experiment with calls for tenders for development projects stipulating multiple objectives of reindustrialization, revitalization of jobs, urban densification (for example by verticalizing activities). Beyond new urban planning, it is about designing ecosystems bringing together a coherent diversity of activities (housing, leisure, services, shops, etc.). The scarcity of public money also requires these developers to find robust business models.
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