The government has just kicked off its plan to transform commercial zones. The aim is to put an end to this "ugly France", as one Télérama journalist put it. Following an initial call for expressions of interest, 74 sites have been selected by the government, which promises to provide engineering support and sprinkle in a few subsidies.
The plan opens up a formidable open-air laboratory for the reconstruction of the city upon the city, reflecting a desire to develop living districts rather than monofunctional zones. The 74 projects selected should, for example, create 25,000 housing units.
The playing field is immense. According to the Ministry of the Economy, commercial zones cover some 500 million m². At the time of the ZAN, the potential land already built up in these sectors represents a resource that needs to be worked on now, whatever the momentum of the real estate cycle.
The stakes are high. Three quarters of French households' in-store spending takes place in these outlying shopping areas. And as ugly as the shoeboxes at the entrance to town may be, they have proved their profitability for over half a century.
The executive is faced with two pitfalls and one danger. The first is to restructure out-of-town shopping areas without breaking the business model. Let's never forget that household purchasing power is, and always will be, one of the most sensitive issues for political decision-makers. The second is to remove the regulatory barriers to this improbable Tetris. The government has promised an interministerial "task force", which resembles a kind of administrative one-stop-shop that many companies are calling for.
The danger is that it will adopt a very Parisian vision of how these territories should be organized. A report in the daily Le Monde (for once) quite rightly points out the discrepancy between ministers who describe the model of commercial zones as "obsolete" and households that flock to them. Somehow, by assiduously frequenting these shopping malls, the French are voting with their feet.