Les données, l’algorithme et le foncier : acteurs et enjeux autour d’une stratégie d’aménagement communautaire dans la Métropole de Toulouse

The article examines the reconfiguration of land policies within Toulouse Métropole in light of national injunctions relating to the fight against soil artificialisation, as introduced by the Climate and Resilience Law. Faced with the limitations of traditional planning tools, Toulouse Métropole has developed a ‘land strategy’ based on a hierarchy of land resources, supported by digital and algorithmic tools and hybrid geographic data sources, in an approach marked by digital solutionism. The combination of internal expertise—notably that produced by the Toulouse Urban Planning Agency (AUAT)—and practices inspired by experiences outside the territory has enabled the production of territorial indicators and maps of mutable and available land, which are used as tools to aid public decision-making. Based on a qualitative survey conducted between 2019 and 2023 among local public and private actors, the study shows that this organisational change in land strategy aims to strengthen metropolitan coordination capacities in the face of the weakening of the public planning sector, by disseminating the analysis methods developed by the AUAT to member municipalities. This reorganisation is therefore contributing to the territorialisation of the metropolitan institution, based on a technical and administrative land management model initially developed by the central municipalities for their own use.