What challenges await the pink city?
In the northwest of the pink city, the inhabitants of Blagnac live in a parallel galaxy, that of Andromeda. This is the pretty name given to this brand new district where business offices and apartments pushed in the middle of the fields in the 2010s. In the morning, flat calm reigned on the scene. In the midst of cubic residences stacked like LEGO, time stretches on lifeless play areas and in deserted streets. Only the noise of takeoff of a Beluga breaks the abuse of the neighborhood. This huge plane-cargo plane carries fuselages, turbines and other aeronautical parts which will be assembled in Hamburg (Germany), Seville (Spain) or Saint-Nazaire (Loire-Atlantique), as many Airbus sites across Europe.
12 hours petting. The workers come out of the factories, the white passes descend from their design offices, and the district suddenly swarms. For lunch, we sit down with colleagues around the Toulouse and Aligot sausage served at the local restaurant. In the room, it’s Babel’s tower. French, Spanish, English or German… The native languages of engineers living in Toulouse are intertwined. In the shopping street, a long queue forms in front of the Isabelle Blanchard sandwich shop. (Read testimony at the end of the article). “It makes people, huh?” When we arrived, there was nothing, everything was fallow with the exception of La Poste and Crédit Agricole, “recalls the shopkeeper who opened her shop with her husband in 2014.
Galvanized by the success of its aeronautical sector and by the technical setbacks of the American competitor Boeing – Airbus represents the first industrial site in France and made an absolute command record in 2023 -, the pink city is boiling. Toulouse research is developing all over the place: grande schools of engineers and trade, best CHU in the country, pole of high technology, European radiation of oncopole – built south of the city on the ruins of the AZF factory which had exploded in 2001…
The Cité Gasconne Talonne Lyon
As a result, for the second consecutive year, the Arthur Loyd barometer attributes the most attractive French metropolis in Toulouse to Toulouse. In 2025, its number of inhabitants would even exceed that of Lyon and would make it the third most populous city in the country*. On average, since 2016, 5,000 people have been settled there every year.
Far from the industrial bustle of the outskirts, a walk in the Carmes, a district extended along the banks of the Garonne, gives the measure of this “sweetness of life” so much praised by the inhabitants. Gascon breweries, small food shops and trendy cocktail bars animate alleys where Belle Époque style mansions parade. Sandra, a cook, has lived in Toulouse for sixteen years. “The living environment has lots of assets – the sunshine to start! – But also proximity to the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean coast. It is easy to understand why people want to start a family there. The figures do not lie, the Toulouse natural balance (the difference between the number of births and the number of deaths) ranks among the highest in France. In other words, there are more children than in the rest of the country.
This population growth is both a boon for the capital of Occitania and a headache for its elected officials. Because the metropolis stretches inexorably in order to accommodate all these newcomers seduced by the quality of life, jobs, businesses, public services and local cultural offers. Between 2011 and 2021, she artificialized more than 1,900 hectares of natural, agricultural and forestry spaces each year, according to the Toulouse town planning and development agency. Twice the area of the town of Castres in ten years.
Housing crisis
Unbearable land growth and now hampered by the climate and resilience law, voted in 2021. This text aims to put an end to the artificialization of soils in France by 2050 and imposes the division by two of the consumption of vegetable spaces by 2030. The subject is among the first concerns of many municipalities in France, but it takes, here, a particular relief. “Located in a plain, the city does not encounter geographic obstacles like Paris, Lyon or Marseille,” explains its mayor and president of the metropolis, Jean-Luc Moudenc. For this reason, it has long spread with suburbs and suburban areas. »A gone time.
According to the real estate consulting firm Arthur Loyd, the metropolis will be by 2030 the most affected by the objective of zero artificialization of the territory. More than 3,000 ha should be missed for its urbanization, thus aggravating the housing crisis. “The shortage of rentals is unprecedented,” said Amanda Berkovic, real estate agent for fifteen years in the Esquirol district. This lack is however essential to receive more than 120,000 students who make Toulouse the second university city in France, behind Paris.
The prefecture of Haute-Garonne faces a historical choice: to be satisfied with its status as a rich regional capital or to give itself the means to become a European metropolis. His center-right councilor, Jean-Luc Moudenc, clearly leans for the second option. “But it will necessarily go through the densification of the habitat; We have to build higher buildings and vegetate their surroundings. »»
On the left bank of the Garonne, the Cartoucherie eco -neighborhood, finished in 2023, is the model of this city of tomorrow more in height. Built on the wasteland of historic factories where French “ammunition” supported the war effort in 1914-1918, it was fifteen minutes from tramway from the hypercentre and combined 3,500 dwellings, 78,000 m2 of offices, multiple shops, a school group of eighteen classes and two crèches.
A need for territorial balance
In the heart of the buildings of ten floors designed in Toulouse briquette or wooden cladding, a huge gourmet hall throne in majesty. Completely rehabilitated, the building hosts a library, sports, concert, conference rooms, and around twenty catering stands where the scents of burgers, curry, cod acras and roasted coffee lodge. “It’s day and night,” admits Kévin, Toulouse by birth, passing through the cartoucherie to attend the concert of the Indochina group.
There remains a question: at a time when the ecological emergency is asserting itself, and when the heat islands overwhelm the inhabitants of large cities in summer, is the growth of metropolitan areas like Toulouse always desirable? “The territory must be reflected in its entirety, not only in major cities,” pleads Carole Delga, socialist president of the Occitanie region. The concentration of the inhabitants cannot continue at this rate, it is a factor of pollution, poor housing, tensions on employment … and desertification of the campaigns. Many Toulousains have in mind this need for territorial balance.
Sclerotic car traffic
After five years spent at Airbus in Hamburg, Germany, Romain returns to Occitania with a clear idea: bringing his native department to life. To raise his daughter in the countryside, this 42 -year -old father plans to go to the Toulouse agglomeration three times a week and to telework the rest of the time.
He underlines the “sense of the project” he leads with his partner, secretary in a health center located in the middle of the medical desert in Lalbenque (lot). “We like the village, our installation will be beneficial in the territory, it will make schools, college, shops and relief will live in Toulouse. Several childhood friends do the same, but the key to all of this is the train! »»
At rush hour, on the ring road, the problem is obvious: thousands of motorists, alone at the wheel of their vehicle, form immense traffic jams to go to work. “In ten years, traffic has completely sclerotic, strongly that line C of the metro will see the day,” sighs Karim, a VTC driver. Expected for 2028, the nicknamed “work line” will reach the Airbus sites in the north and south of the city.
Another long-standing scale project: the upcoming arrival of the Bordeaux-Toulouse high-speed line. Scheduled for 2032, it will connect Paris in 3:10 a.m., against 4:30 a.m. currently. What to arouse the attraction of Parisians followers of telework, but also the challenge of local environmental opponents galvanized by the recent suspension of work on the A69 motorway to Castres. The prefect of Haute-Garonne warns: “We will not leave Zad (Zone to be defended, editor’s note) settle. »A standoff in perspective?
* According to a projection of the stabilized INSEE figures of 2022, published in January 2025, with regard to the growth rate of the municipality for several years.
