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This article explores the formation of the territorial divide in Nouvelle-Aquitaine over two centuries (1800-2015) and investigates an analysis of the whole regional urban system. This vast and contrasting region, with as many metropolitan assets as unattractive rural municipalities, faces challenges of equity and territorial cohesion. This article addresses two important theoretical issues. First, it calls into question the assumptions of stability and unique equilibrium of urban systems and considers those latter as complex systems structured by key processes that occur at distinct spatial (regional or subregional) scales. Equilibrium depicted at aggregate national scales through Zipf's law and Gibrat's law actually obscures variation observed in a multi-scale regional analysis (Bessey, 2002). Regional and subregional urban systems specificites have been ignored in the desire to fit with Zipf's law (Garmestani et al., 2005). This article thus revisits these two theoretical principles of organization of urban systems by mobilizing them as methodological tools (parametric and non-parametric) allowing to describe over two centuries the growing inequalities, to grasp the evolution of the link between the size of municipalities and their growth as well as the importance of proximity to Bordeaux in growth dynamics. Next, the competitiveness and attractiveness logics (Bouba-Olga and Grossetti, 2018) are enhanced in the scientific literature in regional science at the expense of a in-depth understanding of territories and their specificities. This article therefore proposes to analyze the entire Neo-Aquitain urban system, to understand the growth trajectories of all the municipalities in the region and to detect the logics that have widened the current divide. This article also calls into question the spillover effects of a big city on its hinterland as well as the ability of policies enhancing attractivity to ensure the demographic, economic and social cohesion of the territories.

In France, migratory flows between rural and urban areas have gradually reversed over the past decades, leading to a phenomenon of counter-urbanization. Nevertheless, this migration dynamic appears contrasted and there is a socio-demographic differentiation of residential flows to rural areas. As such migrations could modify socio-demographic composition and increase inequalities between territories. The present study aims to examine the link between residential migration to rural and peri-urban areas and socio-spatial segregation. Using data from the 2014 population census aggregated at the catchment area level, we analyze the impacts of territories' characteristics on migratory flows to rural and peri-urban areas. According to our econometric results, individuals are sensitive to sociodemographic characteristics of neighborhood in their places of origin and destination. First, human capital is a retention force at origin place and a pull force at destination place. Second, migrants are less attracted by rural and periurban areas with greater social heterogeneity in terms of education and this push effect is reinforced by high share of executives in the population. Third, we observe a differentiation in migratory flows according to socio-professional groups. Indeed, while social heterogeneity at origin place constitutes a retention factor for executives, it constitutes a push factor for workers and employees. Likewise, whilst migrants mainly flock to areas where median tax income is lower, when migration occurs between rural areas, executives prefer areas with higher income level, which could lead to rural gentrification. Thus, our study suggests that residential migration towards rural and periurban areas could lead to a concentration of people with similar socio-demographic characteristics.JEL Classification: J61, R23, R15, C01.

Using a structural analysis, we show that any journey requires a reliable mode, a suffi­ciently meshed network, a competent user and a common set of rules, all forming a modal system. The first two components correspond to the technical transport system studied by the engineers. The last two represent the human and social dimension of mobility, which is of particular interest to sociologists. Each constituent of this system generates a particular effect: a club effect, a park effect, a network effect or a safety effect. For a modal system develops, all its components must progress together, in order to avoid the emergence of mismatchies that slow down the process. Progress is accelerated when a certain coherence is found. The history of each transport mode can therefore be analysed as a search for a balance between all these components. The competition between modes explains to a large extent how the evolution of a modal system is initiated or halted. All aspects of mobility can be analysed through this quadriptych. For example, the four-stage traffic model cover the four identified components. Road safety mobilises the triptych vehicle-infrastructure-driver, but some specialists deplore the fact that the social dimension is forgotten. A modal shift is only possible if all components of the new modal system are stimulated. The negative externalities of transport converge towards four major indirect impacts: degradation of human health, disaffection for non-motorised modes (i.e. dependence on motorised modes), reduction in neighbourhood relations (and an increase in distant relations) and degradation of the living environment.JEL Classification: R40, R41.

Local taxation and capital expenditure from local governments are important levers available to local authorities for promoting territorial development and economic growth. Local taxes are sometimes criticized for hampering firms' competitiveness that may lead to reduced job creation. This article analyzes whether, and to what extent, the changes in employment computed at the municipal level are determined by the local taxes that apply to businesses. To this end, it relies on French data structured by municipalities during the period 2011-2015, which begins when a profound reform of local business taxation took place. We estimate models explaining variations in employment by various local variables including the tax base, the rates of different local taxes and public investment spending. The dispersion of the explained variable leads us to apply the quantile regression technique which allows qualifying the results obtained according to the trajectory of the municipality. Our results show that the local tax system has little or no influence on the fluctuations of employment, but that the latter are sensitive to the capital expenditure of municipalities. Results do not support the claim that local taxes have a negative impact on employment. However, they partly confirm the thesis that taxes locally collected are used to achieve expenditures that are beneficial to all production units in a territory. The level and magnitude of the estimated coefficients depend on the trajectories of the municipalities. The robustness tests performed confirmed the main results even if property tax may have a negative effect in peripheral fringes of metropolitan areas.JEL Classification: R11, R38, O18.

The French production of public housing in the 30's corresponds to an era when a new generation of city thinkers, the urban planners, elaborates improvement and expansion plans in French cities that will go through the Mediterranean Sea. Considered as revolutionary in France, their concepts will be better received on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, especially in Oran where a new world is under construction. The 1st expansion of Oran is made during the application of the Cornudet law and the low-cost housing policy (LCH), and represents a good example of this concept realisation. Indeed, this experience remains nonetheless special by its sequence during an economic and political climate favourable of innovation, but also thanks to the fruitful collaboration of its builders. This is why, among other things, this experience is exceptional, and we endeavour to analyse it in order to grasp the complexity of the relationships gathering decision-makers, project managers, executers and citizens. This article is an urbanistic analysis of the Expansion and Embellishment Planning of Oran execution works and the LCH of Choupot case study. The objective is to verify the following hypothesis: the 1st enlargement of Oran was made in a context favourable to experimentation, aiming to homogenize the city and its urban continuity through the design and realisation of housing settlements. Since, the production methods of the urban fabric through LCH have been radically different from those of the high-rise residential complexes generating conversely an urban rupture, due to the large scale of housing agglomerations. The LCH shape autonomous and small-scale urban complexes integrating into the surrounding urban fabric and where the diversity of activities brings life to these urban spaces.JEL Classification: R21, R38, R52.

Since 2000, several agricultural and rural policies have been expended in Algeria referring to a territorial rural development process. Among them, the agricultural and rural renewal policy takes root in the territorial development approach which emphasizes the decentralization and empowerment of actors at a local level. This policy is divided into three complementary components and the second one is the Rural Renewal Policy (RRP). The RRP aims to create a local support for development in all rural areas in order to restore a strong social cohesion in the countryside and fight against marginalization. To reach this objective, the RRP relies on the Proximity Project of Integrated Rural Development (PPIRD) as a tool of public intervention. In 2009, the General of Forests Directorate (GFD), central organization responsible for the management of PPIRD, launched nearly 10,000 PPIRD, affecting 1,437 municipalities and more than 1 million households over the period 2009-2014. After more than five years of implementation, the article intends to analyze the territorialization of PPIRD through a case study. Based on theoretical literature, three territorialization mechanisms have been selected to compose our territorialization analysis grid of PPIRD: (1) the project territory; (2) the forms of governance; (3) the degree of local anchorage of the project. These three levers are further broken down according to information collected from a field survey. The analysis of the PPIRD implementation process reveals several distortions, that have hindered the territorialization of PPIRD as the persistence of a centralized organization and standardized actions.JEL Classification: O18, Q18.