Contenu du sommaire

From the end of world-war II, to the middle of the seventies, the old ward, especially in the « zone in transition » has been deeply altered and lost its life, a victim of a urban crisis caused by implementation of a functionalist urban policy. From this period, the old district has become into fashion and they endeavour to renew the whole ward but the efficiency of the interventions is trimmed because the crisis of the town is no longer a « urban crisis » but a « social » one.

From the study of the case of social restoration of old centre districts of Grenoble, the author questions the adequary of the local policies as to the solution to the problem of the social sharing of urban centralism.

Saint-Laurent is the old quarter of Grenoble that stretches along the right bank of the Isère. In the last twenty-five years, four successive projects were conceived to refurbish this quarter and they have progressively been more largely implemented : rebuilding (or its variance : partial destruction of buildings), improving the state of old buildings and reactivating commercial activities, restoration by the inhabitants themselves, and rehabilitation with social aims in view. Our analysis concerns both the nature of these projects and the people who conceived them and carried them out. It points out the gap between the content of the projects and the evolution of the neighbourhood and the predominent part played by external intervening parties. It finally establishes a relation between the inhabitants' own participation in elaborating and running the projects to improve the old buildings and the chances of successful implementation of the latter.

As a consequence of the slow down of urbain spread and new housing construction, the improvement of the ancient real patrimonial stock has become one of the main priorities of urban policies. Grenoble, Lyon and Saint-Etienne, as the largest cities of the Rhône-Alpes region present on this subject a various range of urban contexts, strategies and policies. This paper tries to set up the particular characteristics of public intervening in each city, to appraise their respective results and their recent trends.