Contenu du sommaire

Territorial development theory
The notion of territorial development, although quite new, has to be proved more or less independent from national or regional ones. If one wants to settle territorial policies, or provide recommendations to local actors or various stakeholders, it is crucial to define the basis of this concept and to set up its content, its validity and its legitimacy. This is the rationale of this article. First, we outline the theoretical path from regional development theories to territorial development approaches, and then we establish the foundations of the notion of territorial development, linked with territorial innovation. We end up with an illustration of the process of territorial development, and we emphasize bifurcations and trajectories breakthroughs stemmed from co-operative or conflictual innovations.

Outdoor leisure activities and land utilization : study case of diffuse equestrian activities
The development of equestrian leisure in France is partly due to individual horse owners, who take care of their horses themselves, outside any professional equestrian structure. Besides, little is known about the growth of their number in rural and suburban areas. Our methodology, which combines exhaustive inventories and econometric modeling, highlights first features and determining factors of this new use of the territories. Thus, the presence of these horses and their access to land is explained by a combination of different factors that are related to the current transformations of the horse industry and of the French countryside. A projection test of the results at the national level highlights first elements about areas that could offer the highest opportunities or threats to the development of this equestrian activity. This work underlines the importance of taking into account the development of outdoor activities in land management. Moreover, it offers an original methodology to understand these diffuse activities, which often develop on the fringe of professional institutions.

The territorial rationalities of drinking water security policies
This article deals with the restructuring of the territorial management of drinking water in France over the last twenty years, whereby the main issue has shifted from the accessibility of tap water to all households to the guarantee of its security. Following a socio-historical and institutional approach, this article details the main developments in this sector through a global analysis and two case-studies at the district (“département”) scale of management. It thus sets out to question the territorial implementation of a national public policy. More precisely, the conditions producing different outcomes in terms of district policies are outlined. The research shows the significance of social transactions between stakeholders involved in an “associates-rivals” configuration. These transactions fall within three main repertoires/categories of action: the technical tools and infrastructures, the political project/agenda and the economic dimension.

Suburban densification in Paris and Toronto as a tool of differentiated municipal strategies of urban centralityThe purpose of the article is to analyze the mechanisms, objectives and challenges of densification policies in suburban areas in the light of urban political theories concerning post-suburbs. The central hypothesis of this paper is that there is a link between the strategy of centrality of a municipality and the privileged type of residential densification. The detailed analysis of the processes and policies studied in four suburban municipalities of the Paris-City region in France and of the Toronto-City region in Canada shows that the densification policies being put in place, whose forms characterize a given post-suburban evolution, are explicitly articulated to a search for a relative centrality in the urban region.