In many countries, the objective of reducing public spending combined with the introduction of New Public Management reforms have led to changes in the territorial organization of public services and to a withdrawal of public facilities in many places. Our hypothesis is that in France, this territorial process has not occurred in the same way in all cities. We assume that while medium-sized cities are seeing a reduction in some public service facilities, their disappearance usually occurs in small cities. Larger metropolitan areas have not been affected by such territorial retrenchment of public services facilities. These differences could lead to increased territorial inequalities at the level of urban systems and to a marginalization of some small cities. This paper examines these processes through a quantitative analysis of changes in the location of justice courts and hospital beds from 2000 to 2016, within French Functional Urban Areas.It shows that the decrease in the number of justice and hospital facilities was significant and has affected small cities.
Cet article explore les variations de la notion de « local » à partir des pratiques et des discours d’acteurs divers impliqués dans des projets portant sur l’agriculture et l’alimentation. En suivant les divers modes de représentation du local – des discours des acteurs aux textes d’urbanisme – et les pratiques qui les mettent en œuvre, les auteurs (une anthropologue, un géographe et un urbaniste) interrogent la variabilité de cette notion afin d’analyser la manière dont elle est appropriée et reconfigurée en fonction des arènes dans lesquelles elle est mobilisée. Ce texte vise également à réfléchir aux limites et aux apports d’une approche pluridisciplinaire de ces questions : le pari est de montrer que la somme de ces trois approches permet de voir des éléments nouveaux qui n’émergeraient pas de chaque analyse individuelle.
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