CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: A French sound out on decision-making in urban planning

At the same time that French Government, leaded by Emmanuel Macron, was organizing his “Great National Debate”, I was mailing the larger part of my french LinkedIn contacts to ask them to participate my first PhD survey on “Stakeholder engagement in Smart-City”.

To mention this article: Julien Carbonnell “Civic Engagement: A French sound out on decision-making in urban planning” 2019, medium.com.

no offense: Would French people be able to REVERSE decision making for future cities ?

To know my background better: I first passed a Master’s Degree in Psychology before joining a family business in real estate development in Perpignan, South of France. I early started to experiment digital thinkings and collaborative models in our traditional activities, so I created my own brand named OpenPI for “Open Perpignan Innovation”, that finally gave a same-named Startup.

At the time where my first public speaking skills and prototypes where done, I had to move from my native city Perpignan to grow my business. I understood quickly that a lot of companies were already working hard on the digital transformation with bigger networks, budget and references. So I joined the geographical research Laboratory MRTE from the Parisian University of Cergy-Pontoise, to have a PhD research and get a deeper view on what happen actually in Smart-City market.

As I already felt some years ago, my main topic focus on how the people can plan by themselves the place they are living. From experience, I had integrated the key-words “bottom-up processes, citizen science, participative urbanism, etc.” So I put down this thesis project and started to superficially sound out my french LinkedIn contacts by mailing them this survey. If have received 158 respondents. Lets’ have a look together on what answers are saying.

1. What kind of profiles are the respondents ?

• Gender and Age: Balanced ratio between man (54%) and woman (46%) from all ages: the oldest is just celebrating his 83 years old while 2 of them will have 20 this year. Widely 27% of them are on their 20’s, 18% on their 30’s, 17% on their 40’s, 12% on their 50’s and 7% are more than 60 years old.
• City of birth and city of residence: Born from a lot of different cities (for a very large majority french cities) and two significant datas which certainly results from the geographical location of my network: 13% was born in Paris while 7% was born in Perpignan. And more valuable: 25% of them now lives in Paris while 12% lives in Perpignan.
• Professional situation: Most of them (42%) are private sector employees, 20% are freelance or liberal profession. Then 10% each for entrepreneur, public sector employees and looking for a job. Only 5% retired (not surprising for a LinkedIn contacts based study). They define their current occupation in majority like Project Manager (23%), Consultant (21%) or General Direction (18%) . So I can tell that my respondents are more executive than non-executive. Teachers or trainers, Sales, R&D and chargé d’affaires are each between 10% and 5%.
• Background education: On the one hand, it’s interesting here to confirm the executive position of my respondents regarding to their study level: 66,5% of Master’s Degree.

Answers to “Education Level” gives a big majority to Master’s Degree.

On the other hand, education disciplines are pretty well balanced.

2. What is their way of living ?

• Housing, resting and internet use: 72% is living in urban area, 17% in suburbs and only 11% in rural area. Living in couple for 33%, in couple with kids for 30% or alone for 25%. Flatsharing is only 6%. More valuable: 98% of them are using internet several times a day for “everything” that means for working, searching, hobbies, networking, listening the music, watching movies, resting… and for the large majority (89%) they visit more than twice a year another city that the one they are living in.
• Social network and newsletters: The two most famous social network of the respondents are Facebook (84%) and LinkedIn (77%). Then comes Youtube (60%) and Instagram (48%). And finally Twitter (35%). They use them for professional reasons (83%), for recreative (75%) and to keep in touch with others (63%). 84% of the respondents subscribe to newsletter but only 34 % feel well informed of a specific news by this way. Indeed the majority of them (39%) do not have the time to read the newsletter they subscribed.
• Volunteers ? A perfect 50/50 share between members and non-members of non-profit associations ! While 96% says they do not have any membership in a political party.

Are you member of a non-profit association ?

Are you member of a political party ?

=> To know what kind of difference they do on being member of a political party and involve in taking decisions on urban planning their city, have a look on the last paragraph of 3.

3. What level of urban knowledge do they have ?

• Urban information: Three out of four (75%) say feeling well informed on urban news. Of course, they get informed on internet for 95% of them but can you guess who is the second big winner of the ways to inquire ? Interpersonal relationships for 61% of them. Far ahead of the press, books, conferences and education.

Internet and interpersonal relationships are the most used ways to get informed on urban news.

• Interest for urban topics: Most of the respondents (89%) say they are interested in urbanism issues. 57% for more than five years, 25% for one to five years. They interest personally or professionally but only 10% do it through a non-profit association.
• Engage in taking-decisions on urbanism: 89% of them make a difference between belong to a political party and take part in urban planning choices. The easiest way to globally deliver their way of thinking (they all use their own words) is to talk about the freedom of individual choices, the right to citizenship and the personalization of the local environment. Theses issues do not seems to be satisfied with political party membership. 79% had never participate in blocking an urban project but 81% think they could do it for different motivations: destruction of an historic heritage or natural space, non-respect for ecology or environmental sustainability, non-respect for well-being of inhabitants.

=> These last answers are very diverse and very important to understand the motivation to get involved, so I would probably go deeper on this question in a next survey.

4. How could they involve in planning the future of their cities ?

• Participative Urbanism Processes: 27% have already participate to a co-construction workshop, 46% already went to an information conference, and 32% already went to a neighborhood citizen council. However 38% had never participate such an event. Those who have been to and did not appreciate say that: it takes time, it’s less fun than going to the coffee with the same discussions, it’s neither very constructive or very effective. It was not interactive, very top-down organized and not adapted to allow everyone to express their thoughts. The participants who kept a good feeling on it are less expressive and say that it was informative and a good way for democracy. Finally 56% would agree to go an event of participative urbanism once a year, 23% once a month and 21% would not go.

Would you like to go a participative urbanism event ?

At the question “What prevents you from being involved more often ?” 71% of the respondents says they are running out of time. The same proportion (71%) says that a mobile application or a web site would help them to implicate more often in taking decisions on urbanism. Their empowerment, to get followed by the facts, transparency with government, and a real impact of their implication would be the most motivating.

• How they define a “Smart” city: A city that respect the humans while delivering more efficient services for transportation and jobs. Governed by more inspiring elected representatives but less involved. A city using datas to reduce costs, who would be transparent, inclusive and offers a good quality of life. A reassuring and secured city where everyone feel good. Not polluted but ecological, that respects the nature, linked with countrysides.
• Could they leave their living place ? It’s interesting to see that almost 1 on 2 respondent had already left his city or neighborhood that were no more matching with the lifestyle they were looking for. The reasons are really too individual to report here, but the people are leaving there cities for studying, working or going out, but also for neighborhood disagreement, dirt, insecurity or lack of integration.

Have you ever left your city or neighborhood that were no more matching with your lifestyle ?

• Future cities: At the question “What would you like the more in future cities?” we find the same positive thinkers than the question “How to define a Smart-City?” but better argued, with more details. I do not repeat it here. The opposite question “What would you like the less in future cities?” most of the answers are about noise, pollution, technocracy, technology saturated, big brother watching, dependant from digital tools, standardized, overcrowding and loneliness.
• Taking-part on planning the future of the city: 87% of the respondents would be interested in participating in the decision-making on planning for their cities’ future. Moreover, 85% would be interested in providing an interactive model of their city, which allows them to access simulations of buildings and demolitions or the development of public spaces. But 3D models are not the only way to involve them people on decision-making: they also suggest to use social networks for this, referendums, organizing group aperitifs (in France their is always a good reason for), games like minecraft, electronic voting, cultural exposition and education.

Finally, it seems like french people would love to engage more in urban planning, and digital tools based on internet are approached like the easiest way to do it with the less waste of time and other inconvenience.

Spread the word !

About the author:

Julien Carbonnell: After some years as Real Estate Developer in Perpignan, South of France, I experimented different ways to implicate inhabitants in decision-making on urban planning through my startup OpenPI. I finally started to write a PhD thesis on “Stakeholder Engagement in Smart-Cities”. I’m actually moving from cities to another, to grow my network and strengthen my expert legitimacy on these topics. My academic research is based in the urban research laboratory MRTE, Paris area, France.