France’s Model for Smarter Cities Through Urban Data Standardization

This Global Perspectives blog series draws from a curated collection of over 75 influential urban planning journals published worldwide, meticulously compiled to foster global communication and enrich collaborative planning discourse. By highlighting groundbreaking research, innovative methodologies, and case studies from diverse contexts — spanning each continent — these posts aim to facilitate knowledge transfer, explore cutting-edge developments, and share contextually relevant solutions that address shared urban challenges and shape the future of planning practice.

In an era of rapid urbanization, cities worldwide generate vast amounts of data, ranging from demographic statistics to housing prices, which are essential for effective urban planning. However, each city's unique characteristics often produce inconsistent datasets, making cross-regional comparisons difficult.

Picture a planner in New York struggling to align housing density data with a city in Asia, or a policymaker in Africa unable to benchmark urban growth against European counterparts due to incompatible metrics.

This data heterogeneity poses a challenge for planners needing reliable, comparable information. Standardizing urban data offers a solution, and France's recent initiatives provide valuable lessons for planners globally.

Urban data varies widely due to cities' distinct natural and social contexts, leading to differences in organizational structures and measurement units. This inconsistency complicates comprehensive analysis, making it hard to compare or aggregate data across cities.

For instance, housing affordability might be tracked differently between municipalities, hindering efforts to develop cohesive policies or benchmark progress. Standardizing urban data can enhance comparability, but it must also preserve the local details that make each city unique.

Standardizing Urban Data: Insights from France

One effective method is database unification, consolidating diverse data sources into a consistent format. While this simplifies analysis, it risks oversimplifying complex urban realities if key details are lost.

In France, planners address this through "Géostandards," guidelines that standardize urban planning documents, such as Local Urban Development Plans (PLU).

France (Google Earth Image © 2025)

In "Proposals for Building an Informational System to Guide Regional Innovation Policy," Marina Flamand, Vincent Frigant, and Deivyd Velasquez highlight how "Géostandards" ensure uniformity while allowing localities to retain relevant specifics, striking a balance between consistency and flexibility.

This standardized data feeds into France's National Urban Planning Portal (Géoportail de l'urbanisme, GPU), a centralized platform accessible to diverse users. The GPU supports variable data granularity, delivering information at different detail levels — broad overviews for national policymakers or precise datasets for local planners.

Catering to Diverse User Needs: Multiple Granularity

Urban data serves varied audiences, from citizens wanting clear insights to planners requiring detailed datasets. Providing data at multiple levels of granularity meets these needs effectively. Examples include:

• Spatial granularity:  City-wide data reveals urban trends, while district-level stats aid regional planning.
• Temporal granularity:  Annual summaries show long-term shifts, quarterly updates track changes, and real-time data enables immediate action.

This flexibility ensures data is actionable, whether a planner needs neighborhood-specific housing stats for a project or a national official seeks trends for policy-making.

Maintaining the Data Platform: Public-Private Collaboration

Sustaining an urban data platform demands collaboration between the public and private sectors. Local authorities often prioritize management, while private firms drive technical innovation. In "The Public/ Private Manufacture of Urban Planning Data in France: Between Management Logic and Territorialized Approach to the Rule," Nicolas Ausello examines this dynamic in France.

He introduces "privatisation endogène," where public entities adopt private-sector practices, like performance metrics, internally, enhancing efficiency without relinquishing control. This hybrid model balances innovation with oversight, prioritizing data privacy and public interest.

These principles can help cities build harmonized data platforms for smarter planning. As urbanization intensifies, standardized, shareable urban data will be crucial for sustainable growth. Imagine a tool offering both a broad view of urban trends and detailed project-specific data — such innovations could reshape global planning.

Top image: iStock/Getty Images Plus/ Alexander Spatari