Contenu du sommaire : Les frontières dans la ville / Problématique urbaine en Suisse

15 years after the fall of the Wall, the ancient divided "Front- stadt» of Berlin has been transformed into a modern, reunified and open-minded capital City. The traditional social segregation - the rich population living in the west part of the city, the middle - and underclass population in the east - still exists. A new kind of political border has appeared, between the inhabitants of the westside who voted for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) or the Social Democratic Party (SPD) on one side, and the inhabitants of the eastside who voted by a majority of 50 % for the ancient Communist Party of GDR (PDS). This political distinction has to be seen in relation with a deeper, identitary division between the "Wessis" (inhabitants of West-Berlin) and the "Ossis" (inhabitants of East-Berlin). However, this division looses constantly its importance. Finally, the internal border can be seen as a positive tension between East and West. Since 1989 Berlin is the laboratory of a new German identity ; in the present time of the European enlargement it could be now considered as the laboratory of a new European construction.

This article is about the dynamic of intra-urban boundaries in Windhoek, capital city of Namibia. Designed in order to control non-white populations, the boundaries laid down by the apartheid regime have participated in the division of the society and the différenciation of spaces. With the advent of a democratic regime, the question concerning the future of the inherited boundaries arises. Between obliteration and reproduction, they appear like mutant objects, fruits of a political and social construction. But, if both powers and city dwellers seek to go beyond some obsolete boundaries, they also seem to fell the need to erect new ones.

The middle-sized town of Villingen-Schwenningen results from the merge of two historic cities on both sides of the former border that separated Baden from Wurtemberg in South Western Germany. This specific urban project, mostly regarded as an exemplary success in the 1970' s reveals how the regional planning used in Germany was strongly based on the theory of central places. The paper describes how the two urban centers, 6 kilometers distant from another, have been developped as one administrative and functionnal unit.

In Strasbourg, rich European city, the international border is opened. Nevertheless, the social boundaries stiffen and the border of poverty resists. This border represents a barrier. Crossing it implies a social disqualification because of the entry to the sphere of the welfare services. This border is polymorphous and its trace changes according to places. Its trace is firmly rooted in the deprived suburbs of Strasbourg, where many people live in state of poverty. On the other hand, it is instable in the core of the city, where the territory of homeless is outlined. Anywhere else, its trace is often invisible. The present contribution suggests to study the social and spatial processes making this border so discriminating however so transparent through the eyes of society.

The institutional end of the borders inside the European Union since 1992 has generated a big trend to new transborder territories. Between the ideology of an Europe of the regions and the revival of an historical territory, the "Pays Basque " experienced an important movement of territorial creation. The first steps were taken by the invention of transborder agglomeration linking Bayonne and San Sebastian. The public actors involved laid the institutional foundations of a cooperation between two hitherto separated entities with the goal of an urban territorial fusion. The so built agglomeration is an heterogeneous space made of new limits independent of the ancient international border. From now on the latter seems to exist only in the behaviour and the mind of the inhabitants, which indeed coul be a real brake to the evolution.

The urban social fracture as it is materialized in space is the topic of many studies today. It has a specific history which is here thrown into relief through the comparison between the Medieval town and the industrial town of the XlXth century. Throughout the long Middle Ages, the elaboration of the town resulted from the more or less rapid amalgamation of distinct urban nuclei (castle, abbey, market-place, etc.) with topographical borderlines getting gradually blurred to form a single entity by the end of the XVth century. In the XIXth century, on the contrary, socio-spatial segregation in the towns that have achieved "maturity" results in borderlines that are clearly traceable in the urban texture, and are particularly representative in the case of Mulhouse, here chosen. Whereas in the Middle Ages the "border in the mind" is secondary to social organization, it imposes itself in the XIXth century, through the processes of setting at a distance, zoning or ghettoization, which are intended and legitimized by the ruling classes (the manufacturers) as a barrier between them and the "others " (the workers). Both spatial and mental borders, however, never set up watertight compartments : they are rather in the nature of "territorial waters ".

This paper discusses the origins, causes and possible ramifications of a current research project focusing on the establishment of a solidaristic economy (third sector) in the urban context of Lausanne and on the development of a social capital within the city adopting the perspective of a socially sustainable urban development. It is therefore necessary to understand how new social bonds are formed through the development and financing of nonprofit organizations, whose interactions, both within them and with the public sector, are built and negociated a day at a time. It must also be shown how these ties help define new ways of "living together" and that the development of these activities, as they pertain to the issue of urban renewal, allow an economic inscription as well as a social integration, while demanding a new mode of interrelation between civil society and intervention by the state.

After a short theoretical introduction to the notion of "one's right on the city" - according to which the city is a work of art, produced through a "creative action " by its users - three case studies of the city if Berne are presented : the hall of the main station, the cultural alternative centre "Reithalle " and the district "Tscharnergut" . The authors have raised the question of quality and strategies of resistance which the users of these three places have had to develop to defend their right on the city. In the three cases they state that this right has been used in different degrees, dependant on the social influences and on the determination of the active groups.

The structural mutation, discussed by social sciences, concerning the transition of a class society to a society of heterogeneous forms of living, is documented in the present study of urban geography based on official statistics, covering the total population of Basel City. The social classification into groups of forms of living which preceded the analysis was inspired by the sociological notions of forms of living. At the centre of this contribution is the question how the phenomenon of new societal structures and the new residential models will present themselves in urban space. It turns out that of what influences the behaviour of households concerning the residential location, two factors - apart from the market conditions - are of decisive importance : the affiliation to a certain social level and to a certain social degree of modernisation.

The researches which preceded this contribution were dedicated to the homeless, the needy and the sex trade in Basel, focusing especially on the spatial structures of the town. The aim of the study is to gain the necessary knowledge in the "social hot spots" to serve as a platform for urban politics and city planning. Problematic is not only the concentration of poverty and sex trade in "Kleinbasel" but also the consequent polarisation in opposition to "Grossbasel". A call for action begins to show on a minor scale, especially in the districts Altstadt (old town), Clara and Matthäus.

The prime zone of urbanisation of "Strasbourg-Hautepierre" was constructed in the 1970ies with the purpose of great renovation and urban extension. It has been lanced to accommodate a large immigration population in a certain ambience of reurbanisation, but has not fulfilled the role it had been designed for : to serve as a catalyst for a large movement of social and citizen integration. The present failure shows how much real problems have not found real solutions. While awaiting a systematic and global approach to the latent crisis, some signs of good will are perceivable from one part or the other.

In the last decade the agglomeration of Strasbourg has continually expanded and confirmed its importance as a salient pole in European science and technology. Parallel to the economic spread in certain districts and surroundings of Strasbourg, the economic and social situation has dramatically aggravated in other parts of the agglomeration. Similar to the large cities in the United States, there are also in Strasbourg parallel societies which develop completely disconnected from each other. At the edge of the urban perimeter, surrounded by good situated quarters of the city centre and the wealthy suburban communities, a gradually closing belt of underprivileged districts is emerging. Despite of their immediate proximity to areas of growth, these districts are in reality largely disconnected to the overall very positive economic and social development. They risk falling into a complete functional and economic insignificance.

Tourism is at the same time an inclusion and exclusion phenomenon at the world, European and Swiss levels, according to the point of view adopted. The relationship between tourism and exclusion is analysed by laying special emphasis on the case of Switzerland from the historic perspective, which is mirrored in other contemporary tourist models. Problems of image, of socio-spatial segregations and territorial dynamics in lodging are studied. Finally young tourism problems in French-speaking Switzerland are brought into relief

Guided by the study of spatial distribution of video- surveillance cameras regarding public space within the city of Geneva, different strategies and forms of surveillance by video cameras are shown. On this basis, the article proposes an analysis of the consequences of video surveillance on different actor's urban terri- toriality within public space. The major use of video-surveillance by private institutions accentuates tendencies of privatisation, disciplinarisation and fragmentation of the surveyed territory.