Coastal Urbanisation: Understanding the Shift Westward

Interview with David Miet, CEO and co-founder of Villes Vivantes.

Rising population concentration, mounting housing pressures, and new residential aspirations are reshaping how people choose where to live in France. Nowhere is this more visible than along the Atlantic seaboard — the so-called “French West Coast.” Should this momentum be embraced or restrained? In this interview, David Miet argues for a clear course of action: organise growth rather than attempt to contain it — or risk deepening territorial inequalities.

1. The “French West Coast”: reality or construction?

What does this idea of the “French West Coast” refer to in your view? Is it an emerging territorial reality or something somewhat artificial? How does this Atlantic façade differ from other French coastlines, particularly the Mediterranean?

The French West Coast is a reality before it is a label. INSEE(1) data for the period 2016–2022 make the phenomenon very clear: a territorial ensemble of around 9 million inhabitants, stretching from the Basque Country to Ille-et-Vilaine, welcomes nearly 70,000 new residents each year. It also accounts for one in four jobs created in France over the past ten years — about 60,000 jobs annually. Olivier Razemon spoke in Le Monde of a “rush to the West”: the expression has the merit of immediately conveying the scale of a massive dynamic, but one that remains largely unthought in public debate.

So it is not an artificial construct. It is, however, what I would describe as an organic phenomenon: neither purely informal nor the result of a planned strategy. It is not “a plan.” It is a composite product, born from the intersection of individual decisions, corporate arbitrations, and public policies, at multiple scales. It is precisely this composite nature, difficult to attribute to a single intention, that makes it hard to grasp and fuels a form of collective dissonance.

What distinguishes the Atlantic façade from the Mediterranean is, first of all, the novelty of the movement. The pull toward the South is an old and well-documented reality. The West Coast, by contrast, is very recent: it is in the second half of the 2010s that French demographic growth began to strongly polarise along this façade. And one result stands out clearly: over the past ten years, the only territorial ensemble where the increase in the number of general practitioners exceeds population growth — in other words, where the level of service provision actually improves — is not the South, but the West Coast. The most mobile workers go there, and services follow.

For a long time, the West Coast did not appear in the European narrative — think of the “Blue Banana” identified by Roger Brunet in the late 1980s, that major corridor linking southern England to northern Italy via the Benelux and the Rhine valley, and all the variations that concept inspired. The French Atlantic arc, from Saint-Malo to Bilbao, was absent. Today, its dynamics could bring it into the economic and social history of the continent.

2. Territorial dynamics and attractiveness

Are we witnessing a true shift toward the West in France, or rather a more diffuse recomposition of territorial dynamics? What are today the main drivers of the attractiveness of these coastal territories?

This is a shift, and it is very clear when looking at INSEE data sequences for 1999–2010, 2010–2015, and 2015–2021. In the early 2000s, France gained about 400,000 inhabitants per year and most regions were growing: a distributed growth pattern. Then, from 2010 to 2015, growth dropped to around 285,000 annually, with stronger polarisation toward metropolitan areas and coastlines. Between 2015 and 2021, the shift becomes unmistakable: a majority of the territory enters demographic decline, while growth concentrates in fewer, more specialised areas. To use Sophie Buhnik’s expression about Japan: “islands of growth in an ocean of decline.” France is heading toward a similar pattern.

This is not a diffuse recomposition; it is a geographical hyper-specialisation of growth — and the West Coast is its clearest manifestation.

As for the drivers, I would move beyond the usual narrative: high-speed rail, equipment, services. On Instagram, one rarely sees photos of post offices or selfies taken in train buffet cars. One sees sublime living environments, soft atmospheres, enchanting landscapes, joyful scenes, fragments of a “full and complete” life. What people take pride in. What gives pleasure. The feeling of living well. The West Coast ticks almost all the boxes: it is mild, healthy, cooler during heatwaves thanks to oceanic thermal moderation, hedonistic, productive, industrial (one of the few areas to recreate industrial jobs over the past ten years), peer-to-peer (86% of additional overnight stays between 2019 and 2024 come from Airbnb-type rentals, where coastalisation appears immediately), and now better supplied medically.

Above all, it allows what I believe to be the central desire of today’s working population: to combine all dimensions of life within a single living area. Someone who lives and works in Biarritz, takes their children to school there, and watches the sunset every evening over the Côte des Basques is a “tourist” every day — in the sense of permanent access to a desirable environment — while also being a full resident and fully active. It is this possibility of superimposition that creates value. The primary decision criterion is no longer just what people will do or which company they will work for, but where they will do it, in what living environment. And retirees, evidently, feel the same.

3. Pressures and tensions

What are, in your view, the main tensions affecting the Atlantic façade today? How can we prevent these territories from becoming inaccessible to local populations?

One major source of tension stands out clearly: capacity has not kept up with demand. At the national scale, France remains relatively low-density — around 1.2 inhabitants per hectare, four times less than the Netherlands. But the perception is very different in territories gaining population without increasing supply. Residential vacancy rates on the West Coast are very low, sometimes almost zero: the market has no breathing space.

This produces two visible phenomena: first, the exclusion of lower-income groups, particularly young people. Brittany is now among the regions most exposed to the housing crisis, with particularly strong effects on young people. In La Rochelle, students sleep in campsites — as in Rennes, as in Bordeaux, recently identified as one of the most difficult cities in which to start a career. In Saint-Malo, overtourism became a major issue over the summer. In the Basque Country, movements such as “Se loger au pays” have formed around a shared and painful reality: for a growing part of the population, finding housing has become impossible.

Secondly, this tension feeds a NIMBY reflex: a feeling of invasion, displacement, even replacement. And this reflex does not translate into a willingness to increase supply (“let’s make more space so there is room for everyone”), but rather into a logic of closure: “let’s shut the door.” This can be seen in strong opposition to even very small projects, where dozens of residents oppose the construction of just four houses.

To avoid these territories becoming inaccessible, we must identify the central misunderstanding. What we call “land” is not neutral: it is location — a concentration of strategic positioning and desirability. If I exaggerate slightly, land is Instagram combined with a public transport subscription. High prices are not just speculation; they result from the scarcity of desirable locations — a scarcity largely organised by public policy through planning regulations that increasingly limit available space.

As long as we artificially restrict capacity in the most desirable areas, prices will continue to push out the most vulnerable. The only response is to create enough places where people want to live, in order to restore social balance.

4. Living on the coast

How can we support the growing desire to live near the sea without suffering its consequences? Can we still think in terms of a balance between coastal areas and their hinterlands?

I would begin by saying this: the decision to move is not a whim. Moving, changing cities, is not a trivial act. It requires organising one’s life, paying for the move, shifting habits, reference points and relationships. For many households, these are among the most significant decisions they make. Leaving Paris for the West Coast is nothing like an impulsive purchase. Depending on one’s means, one may gain access to a sea view or to a home located twenty or forty minutes from the coast — still close enough to take one’s children there outside school holiday periods.

I believe that in 2026, planning territory means stopping the fight against people’s aspirations, desires, and carefully considered choices. People are adults — we should not be condescending toward them, especially when we make the same choices ourselves.

Yet today, we are still asking why we should build three or four additional homes on the West Coast, as if welcoming people were an anomaly rather than a basic condition for these territories to function. In reality, within the 6%, 8% or 10% of territory where desirability far exceeds current capacity, if we fail to create enough space to broaden access and restore social balance, we will continue to produce exclusion — with a certain degree of hypocrisy. Conversely, if we densify in the right places — as Xavier Timbeau demonstrated at the Organic Cities 2 conference — we can also achieve significant reductions in everyday mobility emissions, precisely the kind the country is striving for in its low-carbon strategy, and which we still struggle to deliver.

As for the balance between coastal areas and the hinterland, I would urge caution. Of course, direct contact with the coast is a sensitive issue, and shoreline retreat forces us to think in terms of a broader territorial depth. The departmental scale is probably the right one. But our inherited representation of France — a homogeneous territory that can be developed everywhere in the same way, rooted in the revolutionary administrative divisions — has become an intellectual obstacle to understanding reality. As long as we try to apply a single model to all territories, even within the same department, we will slow down both the adaptation of growing areas and that of those in decline.

What we need today is to think in terms of differentiated trajectories: supporting growth where it occurs, such as along the Breton coast, while also embracing virtuous forms of decline elsewhere, such as in central Brittany. Why should virtue lie in immobility? A pressured territory can remain sustainable if it relies on density and on soft and collective modes of transport. Conversely, less dense territories can find their balance in more locally rooted lifestyles, based on proximity. And it is worth noting that if the West Coast is filling up, it is also because other areas are emptying — which is not necessarily decline, downgrading, or even a negative outcome for nature. Those who choose quieter, less populated places — and there are many — are not making less thoughtful decisions; they are simply making different ones.

5. Planning models

Are traditional planning tools still suited to these rapid dynamics? What role should be given to local initiative and self-organised dynamics in these territories?

In France, we have what might almost be called a magical tool, in the sense that we have granted it considerable power: the local urban plan (PLU), increasingly developed at inter-municipal scale (PLUi). This is justified in terms of scale, but it now takes four, five or six years to produce a document that can easily reach 1,000 pages — even in a modest urban area. A document that must be compatible with the SCoT, which itself must be compatible with the SRADDET (1).

Yet by the time an SRADDET comes into force, the demographic data on which it was based is already nearly ten years old. Coastalisation, however, is a recent phenomenon, accelerated both before and after Covid. SRADDETs, built on a “2000–2010” vision, describe a multipolar and balanced France that no longer reflects reality. Some even attempt to counter observed dynamics, preventing demographic concentration where it should instead be supported to contribute to decarbonisation.

The ZAN framework and French planning approach sustainable development in an overly sectoral way. We measure hectares of artificial land without linking these indicators to mobility, housing, employment or lifestyles. Systemic thinking has been replaced by an accumulation of one-dimensional indicators: energy renovation, mobility decarbonisation, land artificialisation, ageing adaptation… Such fragmentation can quickly become counterproductive: we address symptoms rather than underlying dynamics. Vacancy, for instance, has become a national priority everywhere, even though it does not concern high-pressure coastal areas. In many metropolitan areas, elected officials close off possibilities for urban expansion — which is positive — but at the same time block densification, even though housing demand remains extremely high. This artificially created land scarcity inevitably drives up prices.

As for local initiative and self-organisation, we need to be clear: they already exist on a massive scale. We are only just beginning to understand this and to work with them, rather than against them.

At Villes Vivantes, we support around 1,500 project holders each year, with 10, 20, 30, sometimes 40 or 50 hours of exchange per household. We work as close as possible to residential decision-making — not in the realm of opinion, but in that of decisive, often irreversible actions. This is where, to a large extent, the real making of territory takes place. Territory is shaped not only by public policy, but also by millions of decisions taken every day by companies, households, and individuals. Creating a business, settling somewhere, or moving — all of these are acts of territorial planning at one’s own scale. Self-organisation is not just a concept; it is a massive reality. Our tools would benefit from recognising this instead of layering additional participatory processes onto already overburdened administrative procedures.

6. Environmental challenges

How can we reconcile coastal attractiveness with the constraints of climate change? Could these risks eventually transform models of coastal urbanisation?

Honestly, on the ground, shoreline retreat is well documented, but it does not worry many people — or not enough to reverse the trend. And in reality, this is understandable. Around 5,000 homes could be affected by 2050, and 500,000 by 2100 — roughly the equivalent of one year of housing production in France. Just one. And these projections are based on very pessimistic assumptions about coastal protection infrastructure.

In truth, we tend to frighten ourselves. And that, too, is understandable: local populations often seek arguments to justify not welcoming more people. This is, of course, no reason not to strictly protect the coastline and its surroundings, or to organise retreat strategies alongside expanding our capacity to accommodate.

Yet we increasingly see residents, under the banner of ecology or landscape preservation, invoking the protection of trees, open soil, or anything other than housing to justify their refusal to build and to welcome newcomers. The hypocrisy is evident: everyone later laments the consequences of the housing crisis — students sleeping in campsites or in their cars — without recognising that we ourselves are partly responsible for this artificially created shortage.

The paradox is that well-located density is one of the most powerful solutions we have, both for housing and for the climate. The West Coast is relatively healthy — pollution levels are lower than in many other European regions — and cooler than inland areas. During the record heatwave of July 25, 2019, there was a temperature difference of up to 5 to 8 degrees between Biarritz and the hinterland, because the ocean moderates extremes and coastal winds continuously bring cooler air.

If we accept to densify in the right places, we reduce carbon emissions (fewer cars, more public transport, more efficient housing), increase the diversity of services and shops, and make desirable living environments more accessible.

Conversely, refusing density where demand exists pushes households further away, into car-dependent lifestyles and less efficient housing — the exact opposite of what we claim to protect.

7. Perspectives

What might the French Atlantic coast look like by 2040? What should be the priority for public decision-makers today?

By 2040, I believe the West Coast could become one of France’s few truly strategic assets — provided we treat it as such. A rare asset, especially at a time when the national mood is rather bleak and many of our historical advantages are ageing or eroding. In contrast, the West Coast offers space — both maritime and terrestrial — strong landscapes, beauty, a way of life, an exceptional living environment capable of restoring energy, enthusiasm, and desire at a moment when the country lacks them.

Concretely, I see no reason why we should not have a West Coast reindustrialisation plan. With such territorial advantages, locating a factory in Saint-Malo, Arcachon, La Rochelle, Vendée, Brittany or elsewhere along the coast immediately becomes attractive for employees. The paradox is that this attractiveness is often limited by a very simple issue: those same employees cannot find housing. It is absurd.

The priority for public decision-makers is therefore to learn how to organise reception: to create additional housing capacity and align public policy with real geography, rather than with the geography we would like to see. We must also draw lessons from Greater Paris: a comprehensive project linking mobility and housing at the right scale — that of real living areas, which extend far beyond administrative boundaries.

And we must confront what Jean Viard calls the “democracy of sleep.” We elect mayors where we sleep. Where we work, we do not vote. Where we are tourists, we do not vote. Those who wish to move, by definition, are not yet residents of the municipality. This means they cannot vote for a mayor who might propose expanding housing capacity. Breaking out of this vicious circle is, in my view, the central challenge.

Conclusion

Is the French West Coast ultimately an opportunity or a risk?

An opportunity — and, in my view, one of France’s few real strategic assets today. Provided we stop resisting it.

Today, for many working people, the primary decision criterion is no longer simply what they will do, but where they will do it. Having a West Coast that is almost unique in Europe, and remarkable on a global scale, is a rare advantage. At a time when the key challenge is to recruit, to mobilise, and to restore momentum, this geography can play a crucial role.

In the current context, being attractive has become rare. Much of French territory is stagnating or declining, both demographically and economically. Some areas, by contrast, are growing — but we often deny them the final, decisive step: accepting growth, opening up, creating space, and saying “yes” to one another.

The risk is not the French West Coast. The risk is missing it.

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NOTE

INSEE is France’s national statistics office. PLU / PLUi are local and inter-municipal planning documents regulating land use. SCoT is a strategic inter-municipal framework, while SRADDET is a regional planning and sustainability strategy. ZAN refers to France’s objective of achieving net zero land artificialisation.

This text was translated from the French using ChatGPT.