2023-12-05 12:54:59
30,187 hectares, 43,000 football fields, 6.3 times the city of Lyon. This is the surface area of natural, agricultural and forestry spaces consumed in ten years in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the second most space-consuming region in France. The artificialization of our soils is increasing much faster than demography, and for each new inhabitant, 609 square meters of soil are now absorbed!
This sprawl destroys our landscapes, divides agricultural plots and increasingly increases the distances to travel to work or go shopping, and reinforces dependence on the individual car. It threatens biodiversity, the climate, the water cycle and of course our food sovereignty. The multiplication of heat islands, droughts and floods is unfortunately no longer science fiction.
No political leader can decently turn a blind eye to this reality, and to the imperative objective of curbing land consumption. Fortunately, it is a consensual fight in our society: 87% of French people are in favor of it according to an IFOP survey from October 2023, and 99% of the citizens’ climate convention voted for this objective in 2020.
ZAN forces us to innovate
Our territories of course need to build housing, infrastructure, and encourage the relocation of industries. Reducing space consumption by 50% by 2030 compared to the previous decade and reaching zero net artificialization (ZAN) in 2050 does not mean no longer building, but building better.
Also read the analysis: Article reserved for our subscribers The “zero artificialization” of soils, an imperative and a challenge to regain control of urbanization
The ZAN is a source of innovation in the fields of town planning, architecture and construction: decontamination and regeneration of wastelands, optimization of economic and commercial land (verticality, limitation of huge car parks), strengthening of functional diversity , revitalization of town centers and renovation of old housing, use of vacant housing and offices, and reasonable densification of cities, around strong public transport lines or by raising existing buildings.
Read also: Article reserved for our subscribers “Land is at the heart of urban policies and questions of equity”
ZAN forces us to be innovative to abandon easy concreting. Far from being “ruralicide”, the ZAN changes the software of territorial planning, by equitably sharing prosperity and by reestablishing the links between urban centers, the peripheries and rural territories in a logic of solidarity, cooperation and of respect for local identities, far from the overplayed oppositions between cities and countryside.
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