Multilevel Green Governance in Lyon

With some 1.3 million inhabitants and 59 Municipalities, the Greater Lyon established in 2015 as Lyon Métropole displays a challenging partnership project on agricultural and natural areas deeply rooted in its planning history since the late Eighties. Agricultural uses, forest management, landscape protection are at stake, depending on intrinsic characters, the pressure level exerted by urban sprawl, the existence of a local demand regarding their management and values - environmental protection, sustainable agriculture, loisir de proximité – supporting public spending. Since 2015, Lyon Métropole is in charge of environmental protection, sustainable agriculture and outdoor recreational facilities. Accordingly, the targeted scenario of the Territorial Development Consistency Plan (Schéma de Cohérence territorial, SCoT) is likely to accommodate along with the already protected natural reserve areas newly established agriculture and forestry perimeters (PAENs), whose selection criteria are to be consistent with the overall strategy and local challenges as well. This contribution is about the implementation of so-called Trames vertes et bleues, i.e. Green Blue Infrastructure, that owes much to the corpus of the natural sciences in encompassing ecological principles within regional and urban planning. The overall idea also levers on the tradition of urban design in order to figure out settlement patterns able to decline sustainability even as a “Good City Form”, notably by means of so-called liaisons vertes, a minor network of pedestrian connections entering the city core shaping the built environment.