Prendre en compte les risques dans les espaces urbains : origines, effets et limites d’une « crisification » de l’action publique

Risk management, particularly of flooding, has undergone profound changes in recent years, with an increasing emphasis on diversifying management strategies and in certain local contexts, a questioning of the regulatory instruments of prevention-based management (the PPRs), in favor of a more “project-based” approach. This latter perspective reconfigures how risks are integrated into spatial planning, by making the urbanization of at-risk areas more conceivable. The article examines this evolution, highlighting the specific role played by the growing prominence of the tools, rationalities, and actors of crisis and emergency management, a dynamic described as a “crisification” of public action. It details the shifts in policies addressing flood risks and technological risks in urban planning in two agglomerations emblematic of these transformations, particularly in “risk-prone spaces”: the Le Havre industrial-port area exposed to coastal flooding, and two flood-prone neighborhoods in Nantes, Île de Nantes and Pirmil-les-Îles. The article also argues that this “crisification” is not limited to flood risk management, but equally applies to other types of major risks, particularly technological ones. It proposes a heuristic “multi-risk” perspective, placing side by side the management of these two risks—flood and technological—that are often studied separately.