| Editorial
Urban
services the French way - for more sustainable development Urban
services are of vital importance both to companies and people because they order
the smooth running and evolution of a city. They determine its development potential,
the consistency of its territorial organisation, its ecological standards and
the reality of its social cohesion.
These are the basic components of sustainable
development in which the city, the focal point of a global, systemic approach
to problems, has a key role to play. There will be no sustainable development
if cities do not become more harmonised and innovative, less inegalitarian and
wasteful. And this will not be achieved without more dense and efficient urban
services.
But there are still pressing needs on this score in both Northern
and Southern countries, albeit with considerable disparities in their situations
due to their geographic, and still more, historic environments.
How can these
needs be satisfied when most countries are confronted with a lack of public finance?
Pragmatism has blotted out the taboo of ideologies. Henceforth each country, within
a legal framework consistent with its national traditions, aims to channel private
capital into the financing of facilities, involve private operators in managing
them, and better distribute payment of the service between the user-customer and
the taxpayer.
As regards public service concessioning and delegated management,
our country has long been developing original public actions. The competence of
our contractor companies is also remarkable and the major French urban service
groups are world-renowned as leaders in their field.
With this wealth of
experience, France can recommend the full range of its knowhow in all modesty
and use it for the benefit of those who are working for better management of urban
development, for a responsible, more mutually supportive world, and for a more
sustainable future. Georges
Cavallier,
ISTED "Cities" Vice President Contents
- Urban services the French way - for more
sustainable development
- Feature:
Urban services and sustainable development
The inexorable onward march
of urban growth is now an accepted fact. It remains for us to apprehend the city
as the focal point for public action within a national and international context. - Infomation
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