Jean-Claude Bolay

Since January 2020, Jean-Claude Bolay works as consultant, specialized in urban development in Southern countries and in scientific and academic international cooperation.Previously he was Director of the Cooperation & Development Center of EPFL (CODEV) and Professor at the Faculty of Natural, Architectural and Built Environment (ENAC). By training he is sociologist (bachelor) and political scientist (PhD from the University of Lausanne, Prize of the University of Lausanne). To reach his grade, he was awarded a scholarship from the Swiss National Foundation of Science and worked during 2 years in the postgrade Colegio de Mexico, in Mexico City (1982-83) and therefore in the Center for Latin American Studies of the UC Berkeley University, California (1984). From 1986 till 1989 he has been working as senior staff of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in the frame of a slum’ upgrading project of the World Bank and Cameroun Government in Duala, Cameroun. He was contracted by the EPFL in the frame of urban research projects in developing countries, becoming quickly the leader of several projects focused on urban upgrading actions, urban planning, social participation, urban environmental issues and governance in much diversified contexts as Burkina Faso, Bolivia, Argentina, Cuba, Ecuador, Vietnam, to cite some of them. He teaches at the master level in the Architecture section since 1995. In 2001 he was named by the President of the EPFL as responsible of the cooperation with emerging and developing countries’ partners, and therefore in 2005 as professor. He is presently leading a team of 25 scientific and administrative collaborators. He published more than 60 articles and edit several books on urban issues in developing countries as on development and scientific cooperation. He is also Director of the UNESCO Chair “Technologies for Development” and has organized 5 International Conference of the Chair focused on the links between research and operational implementation of development’ projects.https://www.mycloud.swisscom.ch/s/S00D9A9B2395F521E74EA94D2341E0A59719C7D75EB

Intermediate Cities

Jean-Claude Bolay, Abigaïl-Laure Sarah Irène Kern

Cities are defined mainly based on spatial and demographic criteria. The criteria of intermediation helps in identifying current urban dynamics, in relation to surrounding suburban/rural areas or in national and international environments. Medium‐sized cities are emblematic of so‐called “intermediate cities.” According to international thresholds, nearly 50 percent of the world's urban population now live in cities of less than 500,000 inhabitants. In developing countries, these cities face particular difficulties: less efficient public administration, insufficient funds to meet social needs, and lack of skilled individuals to manage large projects. In more industrially and technologically advanced countries, intermediate cities long suffered from the primacy of larger‐sized cities. An intermediate city is defined based on a certain number of characteristics, with three spheres of influence: the micro regional scale, the national scale, and the international scale. Three positions for these cities can be identified: “affected” intermediate cities, with a strong position in their territory; “satellite” intermediate cities, near larger cities; and “remote” intermediate cities, distinguished by a more closed system vis‐à‐vis the outside, given their remoteness. Because of their characteristics, intermediate cities should be the target of regional planning to link urban growth and territorial balance between city and country.

2019

Sustainable Development, Planning and Poverty Alleviation

Jean-Claude Bolay, Eléonore Labattut

In 2018, the world population is around 7.6 billion, 4.2 billion in urban settlements and 3.4 billion in rural areas. Of this total, according to UN-Habitat, 3.2 billion of urban inhabitants live in southern countries. Of them, one billion, or nearly a third, live in slums. Urban poverty is therefore an endemic problem that has not been solved despite all initiatives taken to date by public and private sectors. This global transformation of our contemporary societies is particularly challenging in Asia and Africa, knowing that on these two continents, less than half of the population currently lives in urban areas. In addition, over the next decades, 90% of the urbanization process will take place in these major regions of the world. Urban planning is not an end in itself. It is a way, human and technological, to foresee the future and to act in a consistent and responsible way in order to guarantee the well-being of the populations residing in cities or in their peripheries. Many writers and urban actors in the South have criticized the inadequacy of urban planning to the problems faced by the cities confronting spatial and demographic growth. For many of them the reproduction of Western models of planning is ineffective when the urban context responds to very different logics. It is therefore a question of reinventing urban planning on different bases. And in order to address the real problems that urban inhabitants and authorities are facing, and offering infrastructures and access to services for all, this with the prospect of reducing poverty, to develop a more inclusive city, with a more efficient organization, in order to make it sustainable, both environmental than social and economic. The field work carried out during recent years in small and medium-sized cities in Burkina Faso, Brazil, Argentina and Vietnam allows us to focus the attention of specialists and decision makers on intermediate cities that have been little studied but which are home to half of the world's urban population. From local diagnoses, we come to a first conclusion. Many small and medium-sized cities in the South can be considered as poor cities, from four criteria. They have a relatively large percentage of the population is considered to be poor; the local government and its administration do not have enough money to invest in solving the problems they face; these same authorities lack the human resources to initiate and manage an efficient planning process; urban governance remains little open to democratic participation and poorly integrates social demand into its development plans. Based on this analysis, we consider it is imperative to renovate urban planning as part of a more participatory process that meets the expectations of citizens with more realistic criteria. This process incorporates different stages: an analysis grounded on the identification of urban investment needed to improve the city; the consideration of the social demands; a realistic assessment of the financial resources to be mobilized (municipal budget, taxes, public and international external grants, public private partnership); a continuous dialogue between urban actors to determine the urban priorities to be addressed in the coming years. This protocol serves as a basis for comparative studies between cities in the South and a training program initiated in Argentina for urban actors in small and medium-sized cities, which we wish to extend later to other countries of the South.

2019

Sustainable Development, Planning and Poverty Alleviation

Jean-Claude Bolay, Eléonore Labattut

2019

15 ans de sociologie urbaine à l'EPFL

Intermediate Cities

Sustainable Development, Planning and Poverty Alleviation

Sustainable Development, Planning and Poverty Alleviation

Intermediate Cities

15 ans de sociologie urbaine à l'EPFL