The project addresses the methodology and the practice of evaluation of large projects aiming at transforming the City – projects which by their dimension, their consequences, and their symbolic contents have a strong structural impact on the organisation of the city and of its territory. The project attempts at integrating  two  issues : the city planning, and the large projects of urban transformation. These large projects require an evaluation adapted to the fact that they are at the same time exercises in urban planning focussed on a large part of the city, and detailed projects of urban transformation. From the urbanistic point of view, the analysis of the state of the art suggests to focus the attention on the process of mixed evaluation, rational and pragmatic at the same time. From the point of view of the project, one needs to develop a complex process of evaluation which would take into consideration the interests of different actors involved in the realisation of the project as well the relationships between these actors, which are moved by a process of negotiation. It is therefore required to go beyond  the traditional dichotomy between the evaluation of urban plans per se, and the evaluation of the project defined by its economic, financial and environmental parameters.

This project aims at understanding how the question of evaluation of urban plans and of large projects of urban transformation is taken up in practice, and dealt with by recent research focussed on the wide transformation planned for Paris. This Paris project offers a unique opportunity for understanding and stimulating evaluations in tune with the stakes involved.