Blondel, C; Evrard, E; (2023) Incomplete justice is no justice: Learning from the neoliberal and elitist planning experiences of Euralens and EPA Alzette-Belval. In: Spatial Justice and Cohesion: The Role of Place-Based Action in Community Development. (pp. 183-204). Routledge: Abingdon, UK.

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Abstract

This chapter critically examines two planning initiatives in French post-industrial regions: Euralens in Pas-de-Calais and Etablissement Public d’Aménagement Alzette-Belval (EPA AB) in North Lorraine. Although different in nature and implementation, both initiatives aim to support long-term (re)development and enhance local governance capacities. The first case, the Euralens association, aims to act as a bottom-up catalyst to enable the “transition from the black archipelago [the coal mines of the past] to the green archipelago [the sustainable future]”. To do so, it involves civil society and business actors together with elected representatives and high-level planners to discuss territorial strategies and development plans. On the other hand, the EPA AB is a state-led public agency that has wrested planning control from eight municipalities located along the border with Luxembourg. Established in 2012, it is commissioned to reconvert brownfield into residential areas. Euralens and EPA AB share a similar rationale: the French state planning expertise is understood as the best agent to tackle spatial inequalities. And both cases raise questions regarding the achievement of place-based spatial justice goals. What substantive change can be accomplished if the action is conceived, decided and performed mostly without local populations, and without effective support from and to municipalities? We observed that the local population and the civil society are marginally consulted and instead of boosting the local institutional capacity to act on the long run, the Euralens and EPA AB governance structures add to the multi-layered complexity. This produces a spatial planning policy disconnected from the territory, targeting primarily the development of the locality with limited concerns on its adaptation to the local population’s aspirations. This disconnection between normative ambitions and results feeds a growing sentiment of rejection towards political representatives and contributes to rising far-right parties and political apathy.

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