Today, there are 37 municipal labels in France (cities have an average of 5), according to our partner The Conversation.
These labels indicate and guarantee compliance with management criteria or the implementation of projects over a given period and territory.
This analysis was conducted by Benoît Faye, professor of real alternative assets and urban economics, and Stéphanie Prat, professor of international finance and macroeconomics.
We meet them at the entrances to towns, proudly displaying a number of flowers, stars, crowns, but we know little about the
urban labels
, the number of which has exploded since 2000: 37 municipal labels are now listed, the towns holding some average 5 with, for some, a compulsive labeling behavior (Metz, Nancy, Strasbourg).
These labels, which are distributed very unevenly, cover all the themes: culture, heritage, tourism, environment, economy, sustainability, innovation, services to the population, functional services (energy, health, mobility, sport, security, waste , numeric).
Distinct from prizes and rankings, a territorial label indicates and guarantees compliance with management criteria or the implementation of projects over a given period and territory.
Membership of a label can allow territories to access technical diagnoses, advice, training, financing, tax or legal advantages, promotional kits and above all exchanges of good practices between members.
An increasingly valuable aid as the problems of the communes become more complex and the State more distant.
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Labels are therefore much more than simple decorative panels at the entrance to cities.
As we show in our research article to be published in the
Revue Gestion et Management Public
, they serve one of the objectives considered crucial today in territorial development: attractiveness, whether residential (
balance of entries and exits from residents
), tourist (tourist
accommodation capacity
), or entrepreneurial (
business creation rate
).
The study of the 182 leading French cities shows that labeling explains a significant part of urban attractiveness beyond traditional factors (infrastructure, wealth, geography, cultural offer, social composition, etc.).
However, it does so in different ways depending on the type of attractiveness and the size of the cities: the labels reinforce the tourist attractiveness for large cities (more than 100,000 inhabitants) while they improve the residential and entrepreneurial attractiveness for medium-sized towns (between 25,000 and 100,000 inhabitants).
More specifically, the results reveal that the effect of an urban label on each type of attractiveness can take 4 distinct forms:
Reinforcement labels will accentuate the positive effect of a fundamental factor.
Thus, a seaside town with attractive environmental amenities for tourists increases its tourist flow by its labeling as a tourist resort.
Bayonne or Royan illustrate the point.
Labels of requirement reduce the positive effect of a fundamental factor in terms of flows but can increase the quality of the latter (level of tourist expenditure, socio-professional categories of new residents, employability or sustainability of companies).
Thus, a heritage city may want to limit its tourist flow to preserve its assets by adopting a
Qualicities
label (Arles).
A coastal town can do the same with the
Blue Flag
environmental label (Dieppe).
The correction labels attenuate the negative effects of a fundamental factor (for example the effects of commercial or medical desertification, environmental degradation) without, however, succeeding in eliminating them completely.
For example, the Child-Friendly City
label
fails to compensate for the loss of residential attractiveness linked to the aging of the population (Charleville-Mézières or Châteauroux illustrate this case).
Recovery labels succeed, unlike the previous ones, in offsetting the negative effect of a fundamental factor on attractiveness.
For example, on average the
Towns and villages Internet
and
Eco-city
labels tend to redress the loss of residential attractiveness of medium-sized towns.
A testimony of a relative downgrading
The summary table below displays the membership of each label in each of these 4 categories according to the dimension of attractiveness and the size of the cities.
When the name of the label is followed by a parenthesis containing an attractiveness factor, its assignment in a category depends on its interaction with this factor.
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For example, the Age-Friendly City
label
reinforces the average residential attractiveness of small towns when the proportion of people over 60 increases.
The observed effects are average effects of which no city can be the symbol.
Leaving aside the correction labels, each category deserves a detailed reading.
The quality labels form a small group (
Qualicities, Unesco,
Blue Flag
, France Nautical Station, Destination for All
).
They act in a fairly similar way regardless of the size of the cities or the dimension of attractiveness, although by nature they belong to the tourist domain.
They are therefore, to varying degrees, part of a more demanding desire to attract cities serving inclusion, sustainability, but also the creation of value.
The reinforcement labels differ according to the type of attractiveness and the size of the cities.
Note that large cities have more opportunities in this category than medium cities and small towns.
The influence of the labels on all the dimensions of attractiveness of small towns is fundamentally linked to their environmental amenities (
Tourist resort, Classified tourist town, Family plus
), heritage (
Unesco,
City and crafts
) and the quality of services offered to the population (
Age-friendly city, active and sports cities
).
We find a fairly similar pattern for medium-sized towns, which again testifies to their relative downgrading.
Lessons for medium and small towns
In large cities, residential attractiveness is all the stronger as the labels structure and organize their comparative advantages in terms of health (
Ville santé, Ma commune a du cœur
), commercial (
Trade and crafts in the city
), sports (
Active and sporting cities
) and environmental (
cycling cities territories, eco-clean cities, positive energy territories
).
Their entrepreneurial attractiveness is largely stimulated by the same labels, to which are added labels for tourism development (
Towns and countries of art and history, Family plus
) and digital (
Territoire numérique libre
).
Finally, it should be noted that the tourist attractiveness of large cities is stimulated by purely tourist labels (
Famille plus, France nautical station, Unesco
) but also environmental labels (
Ecocité
).
The recovery labels must hold our full attention, in particular for medium-sized and small towns, the most affected by the decline in activity and population.
In small towns, the
Ville nature
and
Ecocité
labels compensate for the negative effects of environmental degradation on residential attractiveness.
The Villes et villages Internet
and
Ville santé
labels
compensate for the lack of services in terms of entrepreneurial attractiveness.
Finally, the
Villes et Village Fleuris
label allows small towns with a degraded environment to regain tourist appeal.
In medium-sized towns
Towns and villages Internet
and
Eco-city
are likely to reverse the lack of residential attractiveness.
Environmental labels (
territory with positive energy, cit'ergy, towns and villages in bloom
), digital (
free digital territory
) and commercial (trade and crafts in the city) have similar effects on entrepreneurial attractiveness.
Our "LABELS" folder
Given the municipal resources allocated to the labeling process, it was legitimate to wonder about their performance.
However, beyond attractiveness, other labeling objectives should be explored.
In the social field, labels are also intended to facilitate the social acceptability of certain urban projects.
In the political field, the labels suggest club effects between labeled.
Finally, in the field of public management, the labeling process facilitates cooperation between municipal services or civil actors in dealing with complex problems.
Nevertheless, this first study of the attractiveness of the labels is already changing our view of their signage at the entrance to our cities.
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This analysis was written by Benoît Faye, professor of real alternative assets and urban economics and Stéphanie Prat, professor of international finance and macroeconomics (both officiating at INSEEC Business School and associated researchers at the University of Bordeaux).
The original article was published on
The Conversation website
.
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