Result the sum of the adjustments did not lead to an overall coherence

Once domain privileged social interactions, urban public space became the theatre of a competition very contested for the appropriation of the territory. Hardly, coexist on a forced space, a diversity of uses and users, the needs and rhythms different and often conflicting. The development of public spaces, both strategic sites traffic, social links, economic activities, image and communication, has become a real puzzle for the towns, overwhelmed by the aspirations and conflicting practices. The complexity is such that there is a need to address issues in their entirety.

However, today, is too often simply compile the requirements of the various operators, public or private, with requests expressed at meetings of consultation now unavoidable. This logic of accumulation goes hand in hand with a specialization of the space that remains thought on a defensive mode: separators, posts, signs, crossings protected, etc. Result, the sum of the adjustments did not lead to an overall coherence.

In this regard, the development of the banks of the Seine currently proposed to Parisians is emblematic of this way of proceeding. Developed internally by the services of the city and the Parisian urban planning workshop, the proposed areas of activity in which there is a cinema en plein air, artificial islands, educational courses, coffee shops, a nightclub, volleyball and petanque terrain, végétalisées barges The list is long and the consultation invites Paris to amend this list, which is already a figure of inventory to the Prévert.

Return to the banks status of interface between the city and the River is required; But why this frenzy to entertain and occupy cost that Parisians already placed under permanent stimuli For fear of the trouble facing the A non-functional space, some almost nothing for the simple pleasure of being present, on the banks of the Seine, enough yet to fill them. Transform the banks in amusement park, with some granted to the private sector will be priced relegates the user-citizen status of consumer space. It is feared that this bloated offer does actually conceals the lack of real vision for the city.

Of course, it welcomed the disappearance programmed, admittedly partial, of these urban highways, symbol of the city delivered to cars. But it is going a little fast in work for a few metres high, despite the efforts made, the car remains pervasive.

With the development of the banks, the traffic will be significantly more dense on the docks "senior". But only uses it on these Quays of the Seine, so-called senior, found mixed No need to make new lists; everything is already there, life is here, the beauty of Paris as a bonus. Imagine senior docks get rid of the cars that blacken the facades of the Louvre, these thrusts of traffic where there is more good stroll, returned to Paris. Is this not at this location, and therefore beyond, that is the real issue

With the proposed development of the banks of the Seine, is the economy of a true reflection on the public space of the future. It intervenes on a space disconnected from the city for not having to think the whole. It invests such load it will even win the space River is missing in this great ambition.

Only cross-cutting approaches by logics of projects will transcend the various vested interests and propose models of development to the issues. Where are architects, planners, landscape painters, designers, sociologists, philosophers and anthropologists in these projects Public space must be the subject of a true citizen debate who convenes stakeholders, thinkers and designers of the city.