THEMES

As a competency of local authorities, urban development is confronted with the major issues in sustainable development such as the fight against global warming, the preservation of resources and space. Therefore the decisions have long term effects. Urban planning documents directly affect urban and rural zone planning. Residents and local players are indispensable in a public action: involving them in reflections on existing measures and in defining urban planning scenarios guarantees quality and a better appropriation of the issues.

Natural spaces and balances are essential to life on earth. The unequal distribution of water and fertile land is the source of geopolitical crises and population displacement. Climate change could worsen these situations. Hence the need to incorporate these concerns in policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions, protect natural heritage, and promote biodiversity. Proximity policy actions can help educate citizens on ecosystems, local natural wealth and their protection. This greater cohesion between human activity and nature will contribute to the quality of living surroundings.

Not only are regional vitality and sustainable development compatible, but by promoting the use of local resources and innovation, stimulating local players, a sustainable development project can be the motor of a new regional dynamic. As it combines several economies - commercial, social and supportive - it multiplies employment sources and strengthens the region's ability to cope with crises. It also helps to create more responsible production and consumption patterns, to think about the risks and nuisances arising from human activity, to imagine a waste recycling sector that can also contribute to local growth.

The development of industrialised societies has been based on the production and an exacerbated consumption of material goods. The implications are threefold: human activity excessively draws on the earth's resources, causes pollution, and creates waste deposits of all kinds. This development model is also at the origin of health problems and especially difficult working conditions, particularly in emerging countries. The challenge of sustainable development is in imagining new forms of production and consumption, clean and innovative waste management, and more responsibility in the relationship between a product manufacturer and the user.

Education is also a guarantee for a living democracy where each and everyone has their place, can express their point of view and can act. Educational and citizenship issues are inherent to the sustainable development project. Certainly, they directly concern the young generations within educational establishments and the associations but they also affect local cultural projects and make each individual an ecoresponsible citizen, through respect and good citizenship awareness campaigns and an active participatory process, arising from the sustainable development project as much as it fixes it.

Where there is uncertainty, there is ecological crisis and vice versa. Pollution, nuisance and risks most often hit the poorest. Making all basic needs accessible - housing, education, health, employment, safe environment - is fundamental to sustainable development. The economic dynamic, relying on innovative projects, provides new employment opportunities also available to a reintegrated public. Public policy has the ability to encourage social interaction, social diversity, intergenerational relations and to fight against discrimination; because the quality of relationships between citizens cannot be decreed, it gradually builds up around a project where the residents, actors of the city, have their place.

If the action is local, the challenge is global. It is for this reason that, in particular, exchanges with other countries in the world help to share approaches and experiences. Cooperation ties, twinning, cultural and school trips all encourage these meetings. Collaborations between local authorities permit - here and there - to exchange ideas on the democratic process and consultation, as well as on the preservation of natural resources. These partnership relations can also contribute to valuing foreign residents and thus build bridges to involve them in local life.

Be exemplary in change! This is the challenge for any local authority that engages in a sustainable development initiative and will apply to it what it recommends for everyone. It thus gives the example to its institutional partners, businesses, associations and citizens, the aim being to open the way to get everyone involved. The search for the example proves to be just as incenting internally. Informed and trained - whatever the duties and positions - these elected officials and agents believe they could, in turn, better convince.