Tribune. The ecological transition is by far the biggest challenge facing our generation, and local authorities are on the front line in this fight. The urgency to act is great, and the terms of office that opened during the last municipal and regional elections will be decisive. Sensitivity to these environmental issues is undoubtedly continuing to develop within the political world and in society as a whole.
And yet, the necessary transformation of territories is in its infancy. If we see the proliferation of cycle paths, often successful initiatives of revegetation or pedestrianization, the scale and rate of change are far from sufficient. So what is going on? Do we lack, as one might think, technical solutions to provide concrete answers to the challenges facing cities and territories? Is the question only financial?
In reality, not at all. A study conducted by the urban economics chair of Essec, in partnership with Leonard, shows that the real blockages are in fact deeper. Essentially organizational and socio-cultural, they are located at the very heart of French territorial organization and in the persistence of overly rigid planning practices. Our study shows that without a vigorous change in these practices, no ecological transition can really take place.
Exceptional complexity and diversity
We see it daily: the territories face challenges of exceptional complexity and diversity, from the carbon impact to biodiversity, including the management of natural resources, socio-spatial equity, quality. the living environment, or even the management of extreme weather events …
However, what we see is that, relying on engineering which is sometimes important but too little agile and too often working “in silos”, the technical services of the communities are most of the time not in a position to manage genuine ecological transition programs.
This lack of transversality of local public action is also due to the political organization of communities, and to a system of portfolio sharing between elected officials which remains ineffective in view of the actions to be carried out. There is indeed in France a problem of local governance of the ecological transition.
The distinction between “project management” and “project management”
The observation of territories of varying sizes and issues highlights a persistent difficulty in understanding the issues at the right scales. Both horizontal territorial cooperation (between neighboring territories) and vertical (between territorial levels) are still struggling to keep up with demographic and socio-economic developments in the territories.
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