The process of shrinkage, an opportunity to rethink consumed land

International audienceIn this global-city1, which has been established since the XXth century and where everything is in a continuous and productive interaction, territories run out in this remarkable urban development. Otherwise, the urban growth is not a systematic process. These limits are particularly visible then specific events of the contemporary society: economic and environmental crisis, demographic transition or the fall of politic systems. In certain cases, they engender a negative urban growth of territories2. Since the 1990's, more than a quarter of the cities of 100 000 inhabitants are in this situation3 and their numbers are increasing. Named shrinking cities4 or shrinking region5, they know "a decrease of demographic and economic indicators, with their social effects indisputably linked"6. Consumed territories until then find themselves under-exploited, even totally abandoned transforming the townscape. What future for these territories? How to approach them? How to recapture them and to implement it? The aim of this article is to explore the limits of the consumer society on territories thought the example of the shrinkage process with the specific eye of the architect7. Methodologies, knowledges and tools of project are entirely called into question in this context; they are formed to answer at logics of growth. The study focuses especially on spatial consequences of this process and has to initiate a reflection about possible salvage modes of territories (protection, optimization, recycling, land and natural reserving, etc.). A new consideration must be carried on these territories which are no more desired objects of consumption, but deserted by the inhabitants and economic structures. The article is based on the first elements identified stemming from the analysis work of my PhD research. Cases studies, in the process of definition, are European territories with varied spatial morphologies and sizes, and whose causes of shrinkage are different. Another criterion will be integrated: the political commitment for the appropriation of these territories. Various experiences emerge since about ten years: like the "urban marketing" with Saint-Etienne; or no aggressive approaches whose the aim is to improve the living environment of the population before any pump-priming such as many examples in Germany. Even if shrinking cities begin "to be integrated as a clincher of the evolution coming from territories, societies and activities which blind them"8, some public authorities deny still them. Shrinking cities are yet veritable lands of spontaneous innovations and news roles appear for architects and urban planners