Nancy

The Urban Community of Grand Nancy (Greater Nancy) is one of the sixteen French urban communities. Grand Nancy, a local authority of public law, is a confederation of twenty municipalities and 266,000 inhabitants covering a territory of 14 square kilometers.The Nancy Urban Area District was created 50 years ago, in 1959 with a remit to tackle the issue of drinking water supplies and wastewater treatment. With its sphere of activity constantly expanding, the District became in 1995 the Urban community. Since the inter-communal cooperation law of 1999, it was transferred from its municipalities a significant amount of powers, to which belong especially the economic development policy, the environmental policy, urban infrastructures (roads, public transportation, networks such as lighting, heating and water), urban renovation policy, universities and research, sports and cultural equipments. Its annual budget amounts around 722 million € in 2012 and it employs 1500 public agents. Grand Nancy is located at the crossroad of two important economic axes: a North-Southern axis (Luxemburg – Lyon) and a West-Eastern Axis (Paris-Strasburg-Stuttgart), thereby guaranteeing a European openness to the area and an accessibility recently enhanced by the high-speed train. Grand Nancy has chosen to place the social, environmental, economic, cultural and governance dimensions for sustainable development at the heart of its proposed territory of and all of its policies. Its policy has been recognized both at national and European level (labeling of its Agenda 21, selection of two Ecodistricts by the French government to be developed by the Grand Nancy, experimentation of the Referential Framework for European Sustainable Cities (RFSC, …). And in July 2011, Grand Nancy adopted its new territorial strategic plan, built according to the RFSC approach, its issues and goals, the Aalborg Charter and within its Agenda 21.