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In spite of the various factors showing the contrary, urban Systems tend to be conceived as working according to one orderly pattern. In the central place theory for instance, the order has an economic foundation, that is, the hierarchic distribution of services. This and other similar economic theories have all suffered from some undeniable holes in their applications. They propose too rigid a geometry, and they do not explain laws verified in permanence, as the Zipf law. Differently, the theory of self-organized Systems has an heuristic dimension, but it gives poor spatial information. It forsakes space, and even if it allows to simulate the emergence of new cities, it remains inapt to explain the urban Systems. In fact, as it is shown here, urban Systems carry double fractal signatures, they can be said to be critical self-organized Systems, even if all the mechanisms that drive urban network to its critical stage still remain to be known.

Ever since the 16th century, the city of Cairo has been visited and described by many different travellers, often commenting the panoramic viewpoint seen from the Citadel's belvedere. Made of fantasies and dreams, the city's narrative has been built on a almost unchanged framework; Cairo, the mythic city, is depicted as an oriental and eternal city. We argue you that its landscape thus becomes a mirage.

This article focuses on the relations between the particular dynamic of the office space markets and the urban development in France. It shows how the office space market has had a strong tendency to increasing the spatial urban discrimination. On the national scale, it has reinforced the urban hierarchy, and on the local scene it has had the result of a stronger socio-economic differentiation between the centre and its periphery. For this author, the spatial office market is a powerful element shaping the social and economie space of the larger cities.

Today's territorial reorganisation observed in the central Pyrenees is deeply rooted in history, going as far back as the pre-pastoral society that existed in the region. Taking into account the regional socio-spatial dynamics starting from the 6th century, we intend to show that the succession of crises and mutations has considerably modified the nature-society relationship. Through a critical account of this historical process, the connections with today's issues become obvious. They enlighten the problem of the territorial specialization and they raise the question of the relationships between the region and the urban world.