Adaptation to climate change, the future of urban renewal?

Twenty years after its creation, Anru will be the subject in June of an evaluation report requested by the government in anticipation of the end, in 2030, of its flagship urban renewal program (NPNRU).

Its authors will have to think about ways to improve “social and functional diversity” in priority neighborhoods, their adaptation to global warming and the adequacy of their urban planning with ecological imperatives and public safety.

If "sustainable development" was indeed one of the two objectives of Anru at its creation, "we focused all the debates for fifteen years on the question of energy in new construction, while new construction represents less of 1% per year of the stock of existing buildings", underlined Thursday the architect and urban planner Franck Boutté, during a conference in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis).

Mr. Boutté called for an interest instead in “already existing buildings, since 80% of the buildings of 2050 are already there”.

In fact, the priority districts of the city policy (QPV) suffer from "overexposure to environmental nuisances, in terms of atmospheric and noise pollution (frequent proximity to road infrastructures), urban heat island effect or energy underperformance of housing", recalls Anru in the presentation of its programs.

The poverty rate is also three times higher than the average. And many of them are “in a situation of medical desert”, while chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or asthma, are higher for their residents, reports the National Observatory of Urban Policy.

“Environmental injustice”

"We are the most exposed. The reality is concrete construction, pollution, housing that is poorly insulated and the fact that as soon as there is a heatwave, there are more deaths in working-class neighborhoods." testified Féris Barkat, co-founder of the Banlieues Climat association.

According to the Harris Interactive barometer published Thursday, the energy renovation of buildings tops the concerns of residents (82%) of QPV, with the increase in the amount of green spaces (74%).

Faced with the challenge, the government launched the “Resilient Neighborhoods” scheme at the end of 2022, with 250 million euros, to help 49 neighborhoods adapt to climate change by fighting, for example, against heat islands.

In Paris, the climate of 2050 could be similar to that of Seville, with several weeks of heatwave per year, according to expert forecasts.

“Adapting neighborhoods to climate change is a question of social justice to the extent that their inhabitants will not have the means to go to the sea or to the mountains for fresh air,” observes Morgane Nicol, program director at the I4CE institute.

For Renaud Epstein, professor of sociology at Sciences-Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye, the future of Anru even involves "abandoning the objective of social diversity", the challenge of which, according to him, is " at school and not in residential space", for the benefit of "a massive energy renovation program, where social injustice and environmental injustice combine".

“We don’t know how to do thermal renovation in condominiums because the decision-making structure is impossible,” he emphasizes. “The only place where we could have a massive, rapid program is in social housing in priority neighborhoods because the decision-making structures are simple.”

Rather than considering the future from the angle of managing climate-related health risks, Anne-Laure Legendre, teacher-researcher at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin, recommends thinking first about the experiences of residents. and what constitutes their well-being.

Providing well-being “also requires social justice”, which notably involves “responding to the feeling of relegation of residents compared to the rest of the population”, she notes.

Especially since urban renovation projects have not, according to the researcher, "demonstrated that we could change the image of a neighborhood and transform it socially by acting on the stone, the habitat."