Contenu du sommaire : Problèmes et méthodes de géographie urbaine

The analysis of the geographers' language reveals that the traditional geography is part of a mythology : the explanation of landscapes often refers to a general concept -the city, for instance -in which the reader can hardly perceive the economic movers and the social classes which are directly accountable for the planning of space. Moreover the authors rarely clearly state the systems of values the words they use refer to : those of «urban functions» or «urban organism» derive from a naturalist conception which is questionable in matter of urban geography. Does resorting to structuralism and its methods allow to avoid this mythology ? To what extent does the analysis of the social standards, granted and handed down, account for the making up of landscapes ? Is it possible to link such proceedings with any elements of marxism ? These questions will make up the axis of the second part of this article.

In the most urbanized areas of the Netherlands, the lack of space and the sharp competition between the various users have incited the public Authorities to set up a very sophisticated set of laws and regulations. The present trend aims at favouring a concentrated urbanization (without however opposing the natural liking of the inhabitants for individual homes) and at curbing the depopulation of town centres. But it proves of little efficiency when attempting at reducing the effects of the social segregation, especially on account of the important prerogatives of townships (for instance concerning the control of the land market) and of their divergent policies with regard to the problems arising from a new settlement of the population within the urbanized areas.

The recent studies concerning the towns of Black Africa owe their specific interest to the trends of research and the nature of the problems under consideration. In this respect, Rufisque is a living example -through its history and decay -of the gap existing between facts and the theories which conceive space as a perse entity ; it is on the contrary an illustration of the fact that the organization of space implies both the interpretation of a natural environment through an economic system, and the evolution of the balance between the terms inherent to the social system. Established by upper-class tradesmen, who had the leadership in a given political context, Rufisque, a town based on the groundnut economy, became a meaningless entity the moment the colonial Government imposed Dakar as a new instrument. These conditions outlived the Independence of the nation. Despite its economic downfall, Rufisque is a town with a high demographic growth rate, which results in a double problem : the remodelling of the urban lay-out and the function of the town within the region of the Cape Verde.