Winning back green areas to revive towns

In the 1990's, with fifteen square meters of green areas per inhabitant, the “Communauté urbaine de Lille” was one of the towns which had the least green spaces in France, on top of this there were vacant industrial sites and abandoned canals. Pierre Mauroy, president of the town district and Mayor of Lille, launched a program with ambitious political, administrative and technical magnitude which resulted in the creation in 2002 of a new jurisdiction for the “Communauté urbaine de Lille” and its own management system : the Lille Metropolis Green Areas Joint committee. (“Syndicat mixte Espace Naturel Lille Métropole”). This committee succeeded in developing a management system for two thousand hectares which preserved the fragile natural environment, allowed free movement for visitors and met the the farmers' demands. This success was rewarded by the National Landscape Prize/“Le grand prix national du paysage” (France), which was awarded to the “Parc de la Deûle”.