Le tournant qualitatif de la prospective et ses effets sur le gouvernement urbain : les enseignements de l’expérience lilloise

This article examines the increasing qualitative dimension of the urban planning and its effects on urban governance in big urban areas. Drawing on the case of the urban area of Lille, and focusing more particularly on the creation of the new urban planning authority and on the production of a new urban planning document, it analyses how this qualitative turn leads to new powerplays among actors responsible for urban management and how these powerplays underpin changes in the way urban governance is politically dealt with. The qualitative turn of the urban planning fuel, in two ways, a profound transformation of the conditions and the rationales of the political regulation of urban spaces.Firstly, the frequent references to “metropolitanization” (defined here as a set of proactive public policies to turn an agglomeration into a metropolis) lead to an increased significance of science and expertise in the decision- making process of the urban management. This new balance between “knowledge” and “power” causes a reorganisation of the legitimacies and action capacities within the urban polity.Another key role of the qualitative turn of the urban planning is to neutralise the social conflict due to the contradicting interests and uses of the urban space. The qualitative dimension of the urban planning is used by urban leaders to present the patterns and the asset of the locality with a document that narrates the qualities of the place. Such narration enables the coexistence of different visions and interests about urban space, a formula that attenuates the contradiction of interests but also helps to change the political regulation of big urban areas