Contenu du sommaire : La ville : habiter, gouverner.

François Dubet Images of the City and Suburbs His personal research on young people and the suburbs has led the author to see the latter as a place for renewing the urban question in three ways : as a new facet of the social question, as a space of public policy modifications, and as a place of sociability. To avoid oversimplification with respect to this last point, he proposes an interpretation organized around four types of sociability, which show that the world of the suburbs cannot be reduced to ghettos, nor to communities, nor to economic and social dependency. The suburbs is a place with the basic dimensions of a fragile, heterogeneous folk culture.

Philippe Warin Public Housing : The Impossibility of Using Inhabitants On the basis of several surveys of public housing agencies, question are raised about renters participating in public housing decisions (about renovation, apartment assignments or repairs). This idea, a secondary factor during the years of economic growth, has assumed importance since the 1980s, since central and local governments have wanted to implement broader policies. But it has been put into practice on a limited scale in the housing agencies. Reasons for this nonparticipation are examined : inhabitants' lack of motivation, resistance from housing personnel, and differences with agencies' inhouse principles of organization. At most, during «quality programs», inhabitants could be involved as clients through a marketing approach. The principles of efficiency now in order have little to do with the ideas about participation that prevailed in initial experiments.

Jean Laterrasse From the Machine City to the Citizen City : The Slow Spread of Networks Since big cities are acquiring a technological dimension, this article focuses on presenting and assessing urban technologies : electronic surveillance systems, systems for regulating flows, and urban information systems. What is at stake for urban development ? How will all this affect systems of actors ? Big networks cross administrative territories and produce functional zones. Urban information systems necessitate new forms of cooperation. This technology will eventually lead to new institutions.

Dominique Lorrain Big Urban Companies and Public Action Empirical research points to government retrenchment to the profit of firms. Once significant factors and a typology of firms are presented, the author examines the consequences of this retrenchment. By thus extending their activities, firms end up exercising the prerogatives of public officials with respect to urban development as well as the definition of norms and law. This extension, to which little thought has been given, has feedback : it raises questions about the central government and firms. It eventually leads to a new sharing of responsibilities between public authorities and firms in matters of local public actions.

Olivier Borraz Politics, Society and Administration : Deputy Mayors in Besançon Deputy mayors have long been considered to be secondary actors in town government. A study of thirty years of municipal government in Besançon, France, leads to revising this interpretation. Deputy mayors have followed the extension of the city's roles. They are the bridge between, on the one hand, the mayor and local society and, on the other, the elected official's political and technical legitimacy. Two problems crop up. Owing to the specialization of deputy mayors, the mayor's office may splinter even further. Furthermore, the growing role of these deputy mayors raises question about political responsibility.

Patrick Le Galès Urban Policy in France and Great Britain : The Central Government's Will and Ambiguity Given the shifts in urban policies adopted in France and Great Britain, three sorts of explanations are discussed : interest groups, ideology, and the central government's interests. Urban policies do not correspond to classical models of public policy. Is it possible to switch to a new, stabler model ? Since it is not essential to the state, urban policy will remain both ambitious and insufficient.

Michel Marié War, Colonies, Cities and the Social Sciences The history of urban research in the social sciences cannot be reduced to the opposition between technocratic thought from the 1960s and «radical» sociology. Two «side-approaches» to this research are proposed. First of all, during the colonial period, methods of town-planning were worked out, political thought was developed about urban life, and relations between managers and researchers were established. Secondly, through the X-Crise movement, social Catholicism and the Resistance, a doctrine of government interventionism emerged. This examination of the vision of top civil servants shows the importance of research and consultancy as of the 1950s.