Contenu du sommaire

The idea of sustainable development, which was officialised by the Brundtland Report in 1987, was born from the will to reconcile the defence of ecological equilibria with the necessity to offer better conditions of life to the developing countries. It was supported from the start by the most important ecological NGOs. Following Solow, economists showed that, under specific conditions, economic growth was not conducive to environmental degradation. In 1992, the Rio de Janeiro Conference transformed sustainable growth into a political obligation for political authorities, whatever their scale. Because of the urgency created by climatic change, targets were fixed at the top level, and then applied to every State. Other procedures, which give more initiative to the local and national levels, are also used.

This article aims to analyse local productive systems in Portugal, according to the four points diamond methodology proposed by Michael Porter: ‘factor conditions', ‘demand conditions', ‘related sectors' and ‘strategy, structure and competition'. Held the strong and weak points of regional clusters in Portugal, we analyze regional policies effectiveness and articulation, since European accession. Once we have identified the factors that had harmed the development of the local productive systems, we propose emergent clusters, in accordance with the Portuguese regions competitive advantages. A comparison with some success cases in Europe is also presented.

This article discusses the case-study of the Quebec's maritime cluster. It discusses the factors that explain why significant innovation activities in maritime industry did not emerge in what might have been considered at the outset a promising area of growth of this industry and the Quebec maritime region. After briefly describing the development of the maritime cluster, we discuss some factors that might explain the weak performance of the maritime industry in terms of innovation activities and the lack of critical mass of actors to foster clustering dynamics. A range of general policies issues are discussed in the conclusion.

Labour productivity increases with town size ; this relation is improved with the size of real labour market (i.e. workers dewlling minus y minutes from offerd jobs). Hence two solutions : – Develop the speed of collective transports; – Build towers ; but the first solution facilitiates urban sprawl ; the second costs more than urbanization with undividual houses.

This article seeks to underline the value of the works carried out by Robert Ezra Park, one of the founding fathers of the Chicago School, in the field of the sociology of communication. I feel that such a tribute is necessary Indeed, if his work is largely admitted and recognised by all those working in urban sociology, this second axis remains neglected, if not to say almost forgotten about. However, his research on the role of the press in the socialisation of individuals, with an especial focus on the role of the foreign press in the life of mmigrants, remains not only highly salient, but also allows for these particular issues to be revisited. It can offer useful guidelines at the time when numerous host countries are questioning the actual “need” for such a press.