Emmanuel Moulin: A new director for the URBACT Secretariat

What is it about URBACT that made you want to join the URBACT Secretariat as director?
My professional life has been devoted to urban development, designing and implementing policies on national, regional and local community level. Policies I have worked on range from the revitalisation of old industrial areas in the Ruhrgebiet to social development, housing and land-use policy in northern France; from real estate development in Berlin and Lyon to coastal protection, port development and transport policy in Normandy; and from land planning and land policy in Paris to science districts in Marne La Vallée.  In all these cases I made sure of two things: first, actions were designed together with the beneficiaries, for long-term success; and second, all the administrative units and stakeholders were involved, to integrate their range of concerns in a comprehensive and sustainable way.

Through numerous exchanges, comparative works and studies throughout Europe, I became conscious of the need to pay attention to certain features specific to a European model of urbanism. So when I was asked to lead the URBACT Secretariat, it was obvious that the response would be yes!


With over 25 years of experience of urban and environmental policy in France and Germany, your most recent job was as head of a French departmental agency dealing with issues such as housing policy, urban renewal, land use planning, and the environment.  What did these experiences in the field teach you about the need for cooperation programmes like URBACT to encourage EU cities to work together?

In my previous role directing the "Val d'Oise" departmental agency in the north of Paris (a densely populated area with 1.1 million inhabitants and 185 municipalities), part of the French Ministry for Environment, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing, I was able to establish that a key factor for the success of public policies is the involvement of the local level and its capacity to implement them.

Most mayors and technical staff I met felt very alone facing big challenges, such as the lack of social housing or access to public transport, run-down condominiums, difficulty in reusing derelict or polluted areas. It was not easy for them to look for new inputs, ideas and concrete solutions outside the boundary of the municipality. I think this is exactly the type of learning and exchange that URBACT can bring them in a transnational way.


URBACT projects across Europe are finding solutions to urban challenges. Could you highlight any examples that correspond with the challenges you’ve encountered in your past work?

I could take the example of the URBACT project RegGov, which focused on regional governance of sustainable integrated development of deprived urban areas. A key issue of RegGov is that a local project for a disadvantaged neighbourhood has to be embedded in a city-wide strategy. From the bottom to the top you need to work in a comprehensive way at all levels of governance.

My past experience has shown me, to cite an example, that these neighbourhoods often have very poor access to services or jobs in other parts of the city, so it is particularly difficult to improve the situation of inhabitants without an improvement of the public transport system managed at city or metropolitan level.


One of the Programme's strong points is to promote an integrated approach to urban development, involving people from all sectors. Why is that important?

The concept of integrated urban development, highlighted by the Leipzig Charter in 2007, is a key issue for the URBACT projects. If you want, for example, to improve the situation of certain urban areas - particularly large social housing projects - you have to integrate different public policies and to involve all significant stakeholders. It is necessary to develop territorial initiatives that not only combine physical investment in building and infrastructure, but also promote economic development, social dimensions and environmental issues.


In your opinion, how can URBACT benefit cities all over Europe, including those that haven’t necessarily taken part directly in projects?

The programme URBACT II has involved 300 cities with more than 5000 participants since its beginning in 2007. I took part in the summer university in Krakow last August and was able to discover the richness of the debates and the deep involvement of the people who had the chance to participate in URBACT projects. We are now investing a lot of time in the capitalisation of these experiences. I encourage everyone to read our brochure " Download URBACT Project Results First Edition (18.49 MB)", and in the next months we'll put a great emphasis on disseminating these results. We want to reach practitioners throughout Europe, using as far as possible their language and culture. URBACT's National Dissemination Points across the EU will play a key role. We'll also encourage our partners to make the most of social media. And the 2012 URBACT conference in Copenhagen in December will also be a big opportunity for exchange and learning.


And one last question, if you could invent your dream European city of the future, what would it look like?

My dream city would be carefully adapted to new needs, built on historical roots, with features that had been maintained over centuries. People of all ages and abilities would live together and exchange services. Each neighbourhood would have a great social diversity. My dream city would have, in urban planner Kevin Lynch's words, "good city form" where people feel well: it would be compact with vibrant public spaces and mixed use of space, preferring attached to free-standing houses, with a structure easily adaptable to future economic and social changes. It would have easily accessible public transport, be designed for walking, and avoid ‘megastructures'. Nature would be present in gardens or public parks; surrounding forests would reach in narrow lineaments to the centre, with lakes close to public transport. The city would preserve scarce natural resources and would no longer need to import energy: buildings would produce more energy than they needed for heating and lighting, and the surplus would be used for electric cars and transport of every sort.

Read more:

• Download URBACT Project Results First Edition (18.49 MB) - PDF
• URBACT Secretariat - URBACT website