La ville, l'urbain et le développement durable dans la revue Natures Sciences Sociétés: Rétrospectives et prospectives

Abstract

Along with the emergence of the "sustainable city" concept, urban issues are assuming increasing importance in research and debates relating to the environment. In order to contribute to reflection on achievements and interdisciplinary research perspectives, this paper proposes a retrospective and prospective account of city and urban analyses conducted in the journal Natures Sciences Sociétés. Based on the corpus of writings published in the journal since its inception, the author develops a critical analysis around five themes: urban nuisances and the quality of the urban living environment; local pollution and heritage management of urban living environment; urban atmospheric pollution and human health; urban ecology and nature in the city; from urban ecology to the sustainable city. The paper then shows the contribution made by these articles and considerations in the development of an interdisciplinary perspective to investigate the relationship that people have with nature. This analysis highlights the heuristic potential offered by the broadening of problematics and the decompartmentalization of approaches as well as the conceptual, methodological, and epistemological difficulties and stumbling blocks of interdisciplinary approaches that link natural sciences and social sciences. © NSS Dialogues, EDP Sciences 2007.