Urban Policy, Urban renovation, Land equity: What is the Nature of the Problem?*

There is no doubt in the problem of “suburbs”. This is the reason for the grandes ensembles being discussed in political debates s and the press in the early years of the 70s to justify the necessity of an urban policy for solving the problem. But, what is the nature of the issue? General problems are not objective facts; they are the product of social and political structure made of the complex interactions between multiple factors including institutions, interest groups and social movements. A social fact turns into a general problem only as a result of the intensive trilogy process of "naming, blaming, claiming". Naming is the process of recognizing the problem, blaming, process seeks for the causes of the problem or guilty ones to whom we can refer the problem and claiming includes the compilation and publication of amendment programs and treatment. There exist multiple competitive modes of the problem in inception of urban policy which will lead to various strategic orientations. The Debates about the nature of the problem and possible solutions in the fields of ​​public space, city planning and urban renewal legislation and gridlines 2003 (known as the Borloo act) were almost completely destroyed. Nine years later, with the breakdown of the illusion of a complete solution, scheduling the debate becomes necessary. This article is presented in this vision by two goals of: clarifying different approach to the "problem of sectors" and offering a mean for public action. In this paper presents four different approaches of solving this problem which have been fortunate in a short period of the history of urban policy. First, “Jacobine” approach and the structure of Borloo act, second, “communitarian” approach or the guide for social development in the 80s, third, “reforming” approach and the inspirations for urban contracts in the 90s, and last, the “neo-conservative” approach which was authorized during the 5 year presidency of Sarkozy. However, the speeches of politicians in charge of urban policy have led to strange replications of these approaches which are not applicable in theory, and the priorities of these approaches were never exclusive. In this article, there blind spots in the identification of territorial disparities and suggestion of reforming means to eliminate these blind spots are offered as the conclusion of the research. These blind spots are stem from the French statistical system and budget which makes racial and ethnic discrimination measures and the calculation of public resources allocated to different territories difficult or even impossible. Thus, the introduction of ethnic-racial categories in general statistics and geographical location of systematic public funding seems appropriate for the exactness of the challenges of territorial equality policy. This will also allow the expression, implementation, and evaluation of alternative strategies compared to current strategies which conducted municipal politics since 2003.