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Multipolarity and New Forms of Urbanity in the Capital of Yemen The city of Sana'a is experiencing important physical and social changes with the emergence of a network of secondary urban centers. These secondary urban centers seem to successfully attract and concentrate new and old types of activities. One of the major consequences of this recent socio-economic, juridical and land use context is the appearance of new social networks. This multi-polar system becomes a key component of the Yemeni Capital City development, defining new urban development patterns in the outskirts of Sana'a. The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze this original urban development process, which highlights complex interactions between various actors. It results in a new meaning of the Yemeni urban patterns by redefining concepts such as “being urban” and land tenure within this multi-polar metropolitan area that Sana'a has become.

Landscape serving territory : the case of the Alsacien potassium basin North of Mulhouse in the Alsace plain lies a potassium basin, a 2 000 km2 mining area between the Vosges massif and the Black Forest in Germany. Arguments can be brought up to demonstrate its coherent spatial identity, among them perceptions and representations relating to the landscape, which has been developed for almost one hundred years. Inhabitants of the mining quarters show in a very strong attachment to the place. This article aims at understanding more precisely how such a specific landscape creates a better place to live and why notions of landscape, identity and sustainable development are closely linked. As a result, the question of how landscape can favour a territorial sustainable development is asked. An historical, geographical, social and political synthesis shows, on one hand, the importance of the mining factory history and, on the other, the socializing role played by the Alsace Potassium Mine company in helping and supporting associations, clubs, as well as social security service. This mining landscape, visually and mentally alive (pithead, headframe, garden cities, mine dump...), is however gradually disappearing. Factors hostile to the territorial dynamic can be observed, thus proving that mining landscape is insufficient to preserve the mining territory. A regional planning imbalance can be observed between the mining cities of the Alsace potassium basin, between the mining cities and the surrounding towns or villages, out of which the landscape has come to contrast and contradict economical development and political interests. The first condition to apply a sustainable development to the Basin, thanks to the local “Agenda 21”, is to preserve a one hundred years old mining identity. The second is the emergence of a common political will to federate and to apply a political and administrative reality to the project. Thus, it is believed, identity preservation could be realized with the preservation and the increase of the value of a specific landscape.

Protected areas, a new tool for Southeast Asian States' dynamism ? Since the 1960s, territorial organization has been drastically transformed in Southeast Asia. Two processes have given an impulse to these changes. On the one hand, States are still active, pursuing their internal “conquest”, mainly in mountainous areas, in order to consolidate their territorial legitimacy. On the other hand, States are moving toward a better integration into supranational systems, driven by economic globalization. Far from having lost their “territoriality”, Southeast Asian States have succeeded in dipping into these systems, especially in those related to environmental matters, allowing their governments to increase their internal territorial control. The first part of the article establishes the links between colonial and modern States interventions in marginal areas, especially looking at those which concern political integration, administration, agricultural colonization as well as forest management. In the second part, a cartographic and diachronic portrait of protected area networks in continental Southeast Asia is followed by considerations regarding the main challenges posed by this evolution, especially relations between States and their respective ethnic minorities. The conclusion underline questions regarding the links between the State and its territory and how we can interpret these changes.