Panel Discussion: Post-Growth Strategies

Rethinking Growth: Challenges and Opportunities in Economic and Urban Policies

Moderated by Eric Verdeil, Professor at Sciences Po, CERI.
Friday, September 1, 2023, Sciences Po
 

On September 1, 2023, as part of the pre-academic year event for the Master's Regional and Urban Strategy, a panel discussion on post-growth strategies was held, under the direction of Eric Verdeil, the program's scientific coordinator.

Amidst the challenges of ecological transition, criticisms of the capitalist model are intensifying. The questioning of economic growth comes hand in hand with the emergence of degrowth as a promising alternative. Degrowth challenges not only the obsession with GDP in economic policy but also urban policies focused on growth at any cost, leading to detrimental spatial expansion. Metropolitanization, which dominated urban policies from the 1990s to the 2010s, symbolized this relentless pursuit of growth, often at the expense of natural resources.
However, degrowth itself poses conceptual problems because it remains linked to GDP, an ambiguous indicator whose positive value can mask value destruction. Economists propose new indicators, such as job creation, improvements in health, well-being, and social cohesion, to guide policies. They collaborate with local authorities, experts, and businesses that build their actions on alternative logics.

With this perspective in mind, a pre-academic year panel discussion for the STU Master's program brought together experts: an economist, Xavier Timbaud, Director of OFCE and an instructor in the GETEC master's program; Isabelle Baraud-Serfaty, a consultant specializing in urban development; and Victor Fighiera, a project manager for La Traverse, an association supporting local ecological and social transition dynamics. They explored the reasons and implications of this paradigm shift in economic and urban policies, as well as the practical challenges that arise from it.
Each expert explained the necessity of a paradigm shift in their respective fields and how to define this transition. Each speaker analyzed the complex and sometimes contradictory consequences of implementing these post-growth strategies, as well as the approaches taken by stakeholders to overcome obstacles to their implementation.