ABSTRACT
Metropolization processes are intertwined with urban sustainability issues. This chapter illustrates this point through the specific case of the “Danube” eco-district in Strasbourg (France), locally promoted as a new model for urban governance and an experiment in local democracy. As the author mentions, sustainability governance is premised on the idea of a political agenda directed towards a common goal and is fraught with tensions and contradictions such as those between norm/invention, social development/environmental development, and so on. This resource-based approach sheds light on the hierarchical/non-hierarchical dimensions of sustainability governance. Resources first serve the specific interests and power of the actors, which suggests a hierarchical structure for governance. Yet the idea of a common destiny makes it necessary to integrate non-hierarchical types of functioning, which are apparent as actors mobilize and especially seek synergies between the resources of the system in order to ensure its renewal, as a shared priority. Governance offers the image of a stable mode of political steering as it is the result of a shared agenda. Yet sustainability governance is a multi-level process: it can lead to new configurations of the parties involved, depending on the territorial context.
