Jean LaganeUrban nature park in Aix-en-Provence. The challenges facing public developers in the face of the expectations of an ordinary urban environmental movement", Natures Sciences Sociétés [online], 9 September 2025. https://doi.org/10.1051/nss/2025040

Summary:

The preservation of nature in Aix-en-Provence, and more specifically that of plane trees and other trees in the city, essentialized through the recent emergence of an 'ordinary' urban environmentalist movement, is initiating forms of citizen agentivity and leading the territorial planner - the City and the Metropolis of Aix-Marseille - to reorientate its urban transformation forecasts around the place of nature in the city. Based on a local ethnographic survey of environmental groups, local residents and the technical departments of the environment and green spaces, this study documents the way in which public authorities, faced with issues of social acceptability, are trying to develop a conciliatory image vis-à-vis their constituents through a combination of projects designed to enhance nature in the city. Grouped together under the banner of the creation of an urban nature park, and more generally the greening of public space, these developments include the adoption of a tree charter and the greening of a high service bus lane.

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