The government wants a green city policy

“I want a project review, of all existing projects, in 2023, under the aegis of the prefects,” declared the minister during the days of the National Agency for Urban Renewal (Anru) in Paris.

“They will have to reexamine all the projects, because sometimes asking the right questions is not enough: can the schoolyard that we are rehabilitating be less paved? Will the color of the building that we are rehabilitating reflect or absorb less or more rays of the sun?

Credits for “innovating and experimenting”

Called “Resilient Neighborhoods”, the approach will be accompanied by investments in some fifty “pilot territories”. “I want to find in these neighborhoods the best innovations in terms of revegetation, in terms of wastewater recovery, efficient heating…”, said the minister.

These investments, amounting to €100 million, will be taken from the €12 billion already allocated by the ANRU to the New National Program for Urban Renewal (NPNRU) covering the period 2014-2030.

“They will allow allocating part of the remaining credits (…) to innovate and experiment,” specifies one in the environment of the minister.

heat islands

The scorching summer, the second hottest ever recorded according to Météo-France, hit residents in urban policy priority neighborhoods particularly hard, according to a Harris Interactive survey commissioned by Anru and published on Monday.

Residents of priority neighborhoods are more likely than the rest of the French to report having suffered from the heat this summer (76% vs. 70%), having slept poorly because of the heat (74% vs. 69%), and significantly more many had difficulty finding a place to cool off (62% vs. 48%).

The urban planning of these neighborhoods usually leaves little space for nature and causes heat islands; and homes there are sometimes less protected against heat than elsewhere.

“Therefore, I express the wish that this approach is only the first stage of a larger and more ambitious project, a larger project that we would call Quartiers 2030,” added Olivier Klein, echoing the investment plan promised by Emmanuel Macron between the two rounds. of the presidential election.