Well-Being in territorial policies

The subject of territorial “Well-Being” is today much debated. These exchanges have drawn renewed interest since the health crisis which highlighted factors of resilience, as well as certain fragilities within territories. The debate has also been fuelled by the many issues linked to climate change in cities.

However, the methodological challenges are numerous and several approaches have attempted to understand territorial Well-Being without a consensus being reached on any single method.
With the aim of reflecting further on new paths of work to follow, Apur decided to organise a workshop on 26th June 2022, focusing on three questions: 

• What new value based grid can emerge via this approach to territorial Well-Being? 
• How can Well-Being be measured on the scale of territories and at the level of projects?
• What concrete action can help to reinforce it?

Ten or so partners shared their thoughts, work approaches and initiatives taken linked to this concept. A lot of work was presented during the session:

• Lise Bourdeau-Lepage, professor of geography at Lyon3 University, Ph.D. in Economics and author of “Évaluer le bien-être sur un territoire” (Evaluating Well-Being in a territory), defined the notion of Well-Being and then presented a number of tools she has developed for measuring Well-Being and showing its spatial determinants, which were recently used in the city of Lyon.
• Bérénice Thouin, a researcher with the Urban Development Agency of Lille Metropolis (ADULM), presented the “Territorial Well-Being” approach “Bien-être territorial” led by the Lille agency.
• Arnaud Lunel, head of the AP-HP Department of Real Estate and Investment, presented a tool to assist in decision-making developed with Apur to target actions that reinforce the housing offer for healthcare workers.
• Isabelle Lepercq, Deputy Managing Director of the Public Territorial Establishment (EPT ) of Grand-Orly Seine Bièvre (T12) spoke about the work undertaken by EPT to render operational the notion of territorial Well-Being and include it in planning documents.
• Representatives of the Greater Paris, Grand Paris Aménagement and the Departmental Council of Seine-Saint-Denis also shared their experiences.

This note summarises the exchanges and opens paths of thought that could guide future work. Three common lines of approach and one new form of representation emerged as a conclusion:

• The renewal of the way of understanding indicators used in approaches already underway.
• The setting up of a positive dialogue about territories and their future through these approaches.
• The need to adapt tools for measuring Well-Being to territorial contexts and the subjects studied.