Moving beyond the ‘ready-made thinking’ of major cities. Towards evolving models?

Emmanuelle Gangloff & Hélène Morteau, 2025

Plateforme d’observation des projets et stratégies urbaines (POPSU)

Major cities, long obsessed with attractiveness and competitiveness, are seeing their traditional models — the creative city, the smart city, the sustainable city — falter in the face of health, environmental and social crises.

In « Moving Beyond the ‘Ready-Made Thinking’ of Metropolises », Emmanuelle Gangloff and Hélène Morteau explore how these areas, now operating in a climate of uncertainty, are reinventing their practices to prioritise liveability, simplicity and vitality.

The book makes a case for bespoke urban planning, rooted in local specificities, where experimentation and cross-disciplinary approaches become the new paradigms for public action in search of meaning.

The end of generic models : urban planning in search of uniqueness

For decades, urban planning has been built around replicable models, designed to meet the imperatives of regional competitiveness and economic attractiveness. Garden cities, creative cities and smart cities have shaped standardised urban environments, often disconnected from local realities. Yet these models, born of social utopias or managerial trends, are now revealing their limitations. The creative city, for example, has often exacerbated gentrification without resolving inequalities. The ‘smart city’, centred on optimising flows, raises ethical questions about privacy and social inclusion. As for the ‘15-minute city’, whilst it promotes local connectivity, it struggles to adapt to outlying areas and the constraints of the labour market.

Faced with these dead ends, a turning point is emerging: cities, operating in a climate of uncertainty, are gradually moving away from the pursuit of economic performance to focus on transition issues — food, resource management and sustainable transport.

The concept of the sustainable city, born out of a neoliberal framework, is losing momentum in favour of more radical approaches, such as the ‘Anthropocene city’ or ‘climate-responsive urban planning’. These new approaches call for bespoke solutions, tailored to the specific vulnerabilities of each region.

Experimentation as a new paradigm

In a world where unpredictability is becoming the norm, experimentation is emerging as a central tool for metropolitan public policy. Metropolitan areas are transforming into living laboratories, where full-scale prototypes or ‘ demonstrators ’ are tested through trial and error. Transitional and tactical urban planning is on the rise, enabling the city’s rhythms to be adapted to actual uses, such as temporary cycle lanes or the expansion of outdoor dining areas during the Covid-19 crisis.

However, this buzz is not without its risks. Experiments – whether technical, educational, artistic or community-based – may be limited to ‘gimmicks’ or ‘showcases’, confined to city centres without being scaled up. To avoid this pitfall, it is essential to document knowledge and capitalise on both failures and successes, in order to bring about a profound transformation in planning practices.

The stakes are high : what if experimentation, rather than becoming a marketing pitch for ‘ innovative cities ’, were to serve as a lever for profound social change ?

Four pillars for rethinking urban planning

To move beyond standardised models, the authors identify four major areas that redefine the frameworks of thought in urban planning :

Thinking through the lens of health : the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the importance of the principles of hygienist urban planning, updated through health-promoting urban planning (HPUP).

Here, health is no longer merely a medical issue, but a cross-cutting concern linked to housing quality, heat islands, pollution and social cohesion. Tools such as Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) or the Isadora guide now make it possible to integrate these dimensions right from the project design stage.

Thinking in terms of living organisms and the soil : the Net Zero Land Take (NZLT) target has accelerated awareness : it is no longer simply a matter of ‘ greening ’ cities, but of re-embedding cities within their geographical context. Regenerative urban planning thus aims to ensure that the city itself produces biodiversity, energy and food, whilst purifying the air and water. A shift is underway : from an anthropocentric model towards an ecocentric vision.
Thinking in terms of metabolisms : analysing flows (energy, water, waste, food) enables us to move beyond a ‘ above-ground ’ perspective and recognise the inter-territorial dependencies of metropolitan areas. This approach fosters alliances between town and country, based on the circularity of resources and land-use sharing, particularly to achieve the ZAN objectives.
Thinking in terms of culture : cultural urban planning is no longer limited to attractiveness or influence. It is becoming a lever for transition, mobilising art and the sensory to transform imaginaries and co-construct new narratives with residents. By incorporating the emotional dimension and atmospheres, it promotes citizen empowerment and inclusion, which are essential for accelerating the transition towards new urban systems.

Towards open and systemic governance

Metropolises, faced with the intertwining of health, environmental and social crises, must rethink their fundamentals : density, mobility, social diversity. To achieve this, a systemic approach is essential, combining disciplines that were once compartmentalised — health, ecology, art, engineering.

The challenge is no longer simply to manage the city, but to reinvent it by placing inter-territorial cooperation and a long-term perspective at the heart of public policy.

The authors call for a break with the imperatives of competitiveness in order to focus on liveability and environmental preservation. This requires open governance, involving citizens and encouraging experimentation at various levels. Bioregions appear to be a promising avenue for putting urban planning back at the service of life and a fairer society.

Conclusion : urban planning based on discernment

Moving beyond the ‘ready-made thinking’ of major cities is a call for a more humble, sensitive and cooperative approach to urban planning. Faced with the climate emergency and growing inequalities, major cities must abandon ready-made solutions in favour of context-specific approaches,based on experimentation, cross-sectoral collaboration and citizen participation.

“Urban planning can no longer be content with being a mere toolkit for technical management; it must (re)become a form of urban planning centred on use, sensitive and collective, capable of building new, unifying utopias.”

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