Culture and City Policy
Conceived in turn as an interdepartmental and contractual policy, as a policy aimed at the public, or even as a method of public action, the policy of the city has a double territorial and social dimension. While spatial planning aimed to accompany modernisation and urbanization, to plan the development of the national economy, and to promote the emergence of regional metropolises, the city’s policy - In the 1970s in various forms in all industrialized countries - the aim was to reintegrate territories that were in decline into urban dynamics. One of the main objectives of a cultural development policy is therefore a “return to the common law” of urban deprived areas. In parallel with a policy of democratization of culture, supported by cultural facilities, and arts education, the Ministry of Culture and Communication took into account artistic projects integrating a dimension of social cohesion. They have in common the priority of mobilizing people who, because of their social position, find it difficult to access cultural goods and services, redoubled by a negative representation of their living environment, but also their ability to integrate into a common world.
The actions carried out or supported by the decentralized departments of the Ministry of Culture and Communication in the field of city policy concern all its fields of intervention - from archives to live performances, from the living environment to the audiovisual sector, from public reading to cinema - and the tools that serve them - arts education, local participation, mediation.
They cover only part of the operations carried out by regional cultural affairs directorates and public institutions or other institutions that contribute to the democratization of access to culture: pricing, opening up programming to new forms, etc.
The common denominator of these actions is to highlight the acquisition process, experience of another dimension of existence, participation in a project.
Some of the projects supported are directly rooted in a context of urban transformation: the destruction of a neighbourhood, a renovation operation, the demolition and reconstruction of a city, placed in a historical and memory perspective.
Others relate knowledge and know-how from heritage, architecture and urban planning to the sensitive experience of the participants, fostering a dialogue with planners on the evolution of the city.
The function of artistic practices and cultural mediation in professional and social integration are also present.
The location of places or projects in the geography of the city is often decisive for their ability to allow the development of a new practice of culture.
The involvement of cultural institutions in these projects is multiple: they are sometimes at the origin of the actions carried out, therefore integrated in their policy of creation, dissemination and transmission; they constitute points of support, as resource places, host, training.
