The Agency

June 2020, last updated 04 April 2023
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The Paris Urbanism Agency (Apur), is an association regulated by the 1901 Law and was created on 3rd July 1967 by Paris City Council. Since November 2, 2022 Alexandre Labasse the architect, has been Managing Director.

View of La Défense seen from the 5th district © Apur

What does Apur do?

Apur’s mission is to document, analyse and develop forward looking strategies which address the urban and societal evolution of Paris and Greater Paris (Métropole du Grand Paris). It is :

  • A tool at the service of urban development public policy makers and development on Parisian and metropolitan scales;
  • A pathfinder in setting up the Métropole du Grand Paris while taking into consideration its characteristics and competence as defined in the text of the Maptam Law for the modernisation of territorial public action and the assertiveness of metropolises;
  • A platform for exchanging information, sharing construction and distribution with all the key players in Paris and the Métropole du Grand Paris, technical syndicates, public establishments, municipalities and its citizens.

 

Its missions are decided upon each year at a general assembly where a detailed work programme is adopted which includes all the studies, observatories and data processing that Apur is responsible for carrying out and making known to its administrators and the general public.
Apur is also involved in missions beyond its social role when it responds to calls for tenders  put out by Ile-de-France or foreign municipalities.

 

50 years of urban history

Expo web -

Since 1967, Apur has accompanied public policy. To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Agency has put on line the exhibition “Imagining Paris and Grand Paris since 1967” which retraces 50 years of urban history through selected studies each illustrating the extent of the ground that has been covered. There are over 300 archive documents and 15,000 pages which have been digitalised in order to put the exhibition together which will be further enriched each year with new tasks accomplished.

Partnership work programme

The Agency’s 2023-2024 work program is organised around 4 main lines of action:

  • To document and analyse the transformations in Greater Paris - Grand Paris  -
  • To contribute to defining public development policies
  • To Instigate and develop forward looking studies
  • To produce and share a metropolitan culture
     

In addition to this, Apur is active internationally within the framework of decentralised cooperation and contracts.

The majority of this work - apart from the observatories which are specifically for institutional partners - is accessible to the general public on this site and a great number of data are made available on the Apur open data platform.

 

Budget

Apur's annual budget is 8 million euros for the last financial year ending 31 December 2022.

  • 97% of its revenue is made up of subsidies and contributions from partners for missions included in the partnership work programme.
  • 3% are their own-source income (contracts and complementary funding provided by local authorities or the Public Establishment for Intercommunal Co-operation -EPCI-, which are concerned with studies included in the partnership work programme).

The City of Paris provides approximately 70% of Apur's subsidy revenue.

 

Status and governance body

Apur is a non-profit making association made up of 29 member partners whose President is Christophe Najdovski, the Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of vegetation, public space, green spaces, biodiversity and animal conditions. Éric Cesari, Deputy Mayor of Courbevoie and Vice President of Métropole du Grand Paris, is the Vice President and  Pénélope Komitès, Deputy Mayor of Paris responsible for innovation, the forward looking attractiveness of Paris up to 2030 and resilience, is the treasurer.
Pénélope Komitès and Jacqueline Belhomme, Mayor of Malakoff have been appointed to represent Apur at the proceedings of the FNAU (the National Federation of Urban Planning Agencies).

The make-up of this assembly reflects the wish to set up a structure for study and dialogue with the key players in the Metropolis. 

 

Organisation

Apur has 73 employees as of 1 January 2024 who form multidisciplinary teams :

  • heads of studies (architects, engineers, economists, geographers, sociologists, demographers, cartographers);
  • GIS and data base specialists, geomaticians, statisticians;
  • documentation, publishing and communication departments;
  • administrative services (human resources, accounting, secretariat, etc.).

 

Resources

The Agency has a documentary collection devoted to the urban, societal, economic and environment evolution of Paris in its metropolitan context and makes comparisons with other large European and international metropolises. This collection is made up of 20,000 references which, apart from Apur's publications, includes maps, Paris City Council deliberations, study and research reports, public reports, theses and memoirs. 

These documents can be consulted by appointment but cannot be lent externally. An iconographic collection is also available. The collection deals essentially with Paris and covers the period from 1970 to the present day. With a wealth of around 20,000 digital documents and 70,000 analog processed documents, the collection is made up of photographs, maps, historical maps, studies, projections…

 

Seine Valley

The cooperation of urbanism agencies since 2010 has provided technical support to regional and national politicians in that concerning the course of the River Seine. Bringing together agencies from Caen (AUCAME), Le Havre (AURH),  Ile-de-France (Institut Paris Region), Paris (Apur) and Rouen (AURBSE), this cooperation accompanied the first actions and reflections on the River Seine watercourse. The cooperation was formalised in a cooperation charter in 2014 and is notably commissioned within the framework of the CPIER 2015-2020 “Seine Valley - Vallée de la Seine” to : 

  • draw up a plan of action for monitoring territorial dynamics; this plan should notably enable a common core to be established and knowledge to be shared; 
  • organise meetings of the Seine Valley urbanism agencies and produce an annual study in order to further the dynamic of the Seine Valley Project.

In 2018/2019, Apur was responsible for running and animating all the cooperative activities of the Seine Valley urbanism agencies notably by organising the annual symposium and managing a study on the theme of fluvial and maritime tourism along the Seine Valley.

For more information on the cooperation of the Seine Valley urbanism agencies consult the site devoted to their cooperation.

Resources

Documents to download

  • Document

    2023/2024 Partnership work programme

    Format : pdf, 25.92 MB
    Download
  • Document

    The Agency’s work made available online in 2022

    Format : pdf, 11 MB
    Download
  • Document

    The Agency’s work made available online in 2021

    Format : pdf, 5.39 MB
    Download
  • Document

    2020 Activity Report

    Format : pdf, 38.27 MB
    Download
  • Document

    Status - 25 June 2021

    Format : pdf, 248.63 KB
    Download
  • Document

    The Agency’s work made available online in 2020

    Format : pdf, 6.88 MB
    Download