1. State of the Art in France
By Jean-Luc Lipatz

2. Statistics and the local level
Mismatch between :
City planning : local
Administrative data : collected by various national bodies
Urban Audit 2 is an opportunity to build a place to store
multi-domain data
comparative data

3. Spatial units: problems
No commonly agreed definition of the city
NUTS 5, NUTS 3 were not applicable
Both inherited from (potentially locally different) history
Too many NUTS 5 regions
Not today’s city planning level
Lille is a medium size city, much more smaller than Montpellier, but with the biggest LUZ of France?

4. Spatial units : proposal
City
Administratively structured groups of municipalities in urban context (CA, CU)
“Unité urbaine” (continuity of built up area)
As reference
As default
Larger Urban Zone
“Aire urbaine” (commuting zone)
Laws

5. Spatial units : the sub-city level
Problems :
Statistical units are too small
post codes
Census areas : 200 inhabitants
Local data dissemination areas (IRIS : 2000 inh.)
There is no (not yet) administrative sub-city level
Future “Local democracy” districts

6. Spatial units : the sub-city level
Proposal : Specially designed for groups of IRIS
Homogeneous
Proximity coming from a multi-dimensional space derived from a principal components analysis on data about unemployment and various forms of employment.
With connectivity constraints
Preserving municipality boundaries

7. Spatial units : getting data
Three levels for data collection
IRIS (for sub-city indicators)
Municipality
CA, CU
Four/Five levels for data dissemination
Aggregated zones (Eurostat only)
Municipality (“core city area”?)
City
CA,CU
“Unité urbaines”
“Aires urbaines”

8. Scope of Urban Audit 2
European France : Every ‘Aire urbaine’ with more than inhabitants
(130 cities)
France’s overseas departements (DOM) ?
(at least the chief towns)

9. Sources and availability
A - National
A - Local
B - BIT
B - Environment
B - Transport C D

10. Data collection INSEE Public bodies Municipalities (10 000…)
Existing contacts with frequent data transmission (TER)
Existing contacts but needing contract (CAF)
New contacts being established (CLC)
Municipalities (10 000…)

11. Quality assurance Quality is a matter of the objective, but…
Main source is the Public Statistical System
Data checking
Extreme values of cities per inhabitant ratios
Methods: Unreliable data for comparison purposes
Life expectancy at birth – not local data
GDP – comparability needs further work or a less imprecise proxy (wages)

12. Partnerships DATAR AMGVF (mayors of large cities)
Scope of the data base : geographical levels
AMGVF (mayors of large cities)
Data collection from municipalities
Further extensions
Public services offered to citizens
Cost of being a citizen (local taxes)
Sub-city level
FNAU (city planning agencies)
Urban Audit pilot phase
Dissemination of the results