Services publics et fractures de la ville. La « pensée publique » entre diversité, éclatement et souci du rapprochement

This review of publications, mostly written during the 1990s, examines the links between scientific expertise and public (in the first place central) authorities’ priorities with regard to public services in urban areas in France. The relations between “public services” and the “city” refer to a many-sided reality at the center of specialized discussions that do not lend themselves to generalization. The relations between these two subjects can be seen from three angles: the territorial supply of services; their relations with the environment; and the norms for thinking about and justifying the changes under way. Regardless of the angle chosen, three themes can be identified in talk about public services and urban areas: diversity, fragmentation and proximity. The publications examined in this review represent a mixture of heterogeneous studies, more or less dependent on requests from public institutions. These variable and varying requests provide evidence of the state’s hesitations about how to cope with social and urban changes.