En marge… landscape, ecology and urbanization along infrastructure in the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai

The paper describes the result of a research project elaborated by the ‘Labo Stedenbouw’ (Laboratory for Urbanism, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Ghent University) in collaboration with the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage de Lille (En marge… Paysage et biodiversité des délaissés et accotements infrastructurels de l’eurométropole Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai). Subject of the study is the eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai, a cross-border polynuclear region in which the important cities in 2008 have made an agreement to collaborate. Within this region the infrastructure (roads and highways, rail roads, canals) holds an important position: it composes the framework joining the dispersed urban condition. Furthermore, biologists have ascertained that the infrastructure’s margins also hold an important ecological value. Along the infrastructure, multiple “terrains vagues” are situated, sites that have lost their status or function as they were cut through by infrastructure. Also many highway and railway banks, as well as the shores of waterways are little or not accessible, as a result of which a new, but ‘wild’ nature comes into being. A first part of the research, executed by Lille University’s biologists, visualizes the biological diversity of the margins along infrastructure and their possibility to function as ecological corridors. In particular, the hypothesis of considering the infrastructure also as a green and blue network structuring the Eurometropolis is tested. A second part of the research, and this is where the paper focuses on, regards the relationship between these corridors and urbanisation. Which landscape qualities do these corridors offer? How are they used? Can they be made accessible and absorb urban functions? How do they relate towards the neighbouring urban tissue en how can they be a structuring element for the urbanised region of the Eurometropolis

Creativity in the Lille metropolitan area : the example of the image sector

In France, the Paris region is the traditional centre for decision-making and creative functions. Unsurprisingly, it concentrates most cultural industries – cinema, multimedia, TV, etc. The aim of this paper is to study how other French cities, and more specifically regional medium-sized cities, can develop this type of activities. We will take the example of the multimedia industry in the Lille metropolitan area. Ann-Lee Saxenian (1994) has shown the importance of regional culture and heritage in the constitution of an economic trajectory. The pre-existence of links between film production, media or microelectronic industries, and of an intense cultural life can support the emergence of essential know-how for the development of an image sector (Sträter, 2000). Lille isn’t a traditional filming area and the weak presence of the television media didn’t facilitate the emergence of large regional production groups. But, the decline of textile factories has allowed the development of new activities, as mail-order selling, which have used multimedia and image technologies since the 1980s. Moreover, Lille metropolitan area has a broad training offering in the technical and creative fields which can have significant repercussions for the constitution of a creative class (Florida, 2002). But the emergence of start-up has been very limited since the 1990s and 2000s. In 2009, the Lille metropolitan area counts only 350 firms in the image sector and has not a critical mass. Cognitive diversity generated by a social group stimulates creative individual potential (Miliken, Bartel and Kurtzberg, 2003). This explains the choice made by public authorities to locate audiovisual and multimedia firms in three media districts, which accommodates schools, research centres, publics authorities and firms (thanks to free tax zones, cheap facilities and incubators) according to the Triple Helix principles (Etzkowitz and Leydersdorff, 1997). That projects aim to retain young graduates by offering an environment enable to developing their careers. But the national project for extending the Plaine Saint-Denis audiovisual cluster, located north of Paris, is likely to deter the settlement of firms in Lille, because of the weakness of both the sector and the networks.

E-governmental services in the Baltic Sea Region

This paper will present results of the surveys and new trends which were related to e-governmental issues. A common understanding of e-government is usage of ICT means in the public sector for delivering information and services to its customers and enterprises. The objective is improvement of public services and strengthening democratic processes. E-government is a popular topic in the political agenda throughout the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) with all countries having ICT development strategies, policies or agendas. However, often are missing goals for thematic developments which would take into account the needs of potential users. The structure of the paper is ordered to present firstly, the overall objectives of e-governance and e-services. Secondly, the data about the satisfaction level of enterprises for e-services is given. As there are not many comparable results available about the needs of the enterprises, the paper is based on two main sources. One of the important outcomes of the LogOn Baltic project was to provide empirical data about satisfaction level of enterprises with existing eservices and about the needs for new services. The aim of the INTERREG III B project LogOn Baltic was to present solutions for improving the interplay between Logistics and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) competence and spatial planning, strengthening the small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) competitiveness in the BSR. The ICT-related results of the LogOn Baltic project provide an overview of the existing ICT structures and services in the BSR, mainly based on a web-based scientific survey with nearly 1,100 responses. A second source is the survey on the satisfaction level with public services among enterprises in Estonia in the City of Tallinn, which shows similar trends with the LogOn Baltic project. The third part of the paper introduces some case studies on innovative e-services in Estonia and Germany together with the European initiative for the BSR to improve e-services for companies. --

Uniform rationality of Poincar\'e series of p-adic equivalence relations and Igusa's conjecture on exponential sums

This thesis contains some new results on the uniform rationality of Poincar\'e series of p-adic equivalence relations and Igusa's conjecture on exponential sumsComment: Doctoral thesis, University of Lill

Laudatio Serge Dauchy, 24.02.2010

Short biography of prof. dr. Serge Dauchy (Lille and Brussels) on the occasion of the handing over of the Sarton Medal

: Introduction

To understand what is called the post-socialist, the post-soviet city, it is still necessary, 20 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, to reread what was the socialist city, all the more so as the debate has arose again since the 1990s. There are three main ways to understand what means the relationship between an ideology ("socialist") and a spatial reality ("city"). The first one deals with the ideology which underlined the urban development, in the Soviet Union, and further in the rest of the Eastern Block. But this field is not very fertile, because the Marxist literature tells more about the relationship between rural and urban worlds than about what should be the nature of the socialist city. The second level is thus made of what was made and written in the sphere of town planning and architecture in those countries. The third level of understanding the socialist city is made of the literature in social sciences, which allows to understand what were the urban specificities of the real socialism. This was already done in 1979, and again after 1989, with new points of view. Today the debate about the socialist city is not only academic ; in new democracies, in city under economic pressures, political local or national elites, economic stakeholders, inhabitants, public opinion look at this stage of urban development differently. The papers gathered in this special issue of Histoire Urbaine show different aspects of this topic in such countries as Germany, Armenia, Romania, Russia.Pour comprendre ce qu'on appelle la ville post-socialiste, ou post-soviétique, il est encore nécessaire, vingt ans après la chute Rideau de fer, de relire ce qu'était la ville socialiste, d'autant plus que le débat est réactualisé depuis 1990. Il y a trois manières de comprendre la manière dont une idéologie (le socialisme) et une réalité spatiale (la ville) étaient liées. La première interroge l'idéologie qui sous-tendait le développement urbain en URSS puis dans le reste du bloc de l'est. Mais ce champ n'est guère fertile, car la littérature marxiste en dit davantage sur les relations entre les mondes urbain et rural que sur ce que devrait être la nature de la ville socialiste. Le deuxième niveau est donc fait de ce qui fut réalisé et écrit dans le domaine de l'urbanisme et de l'architecture de ces pays. Le troisième niveau vient de la littérature des sciences sociales, qui permettent de comprendre quelles étaient les spécificités de la ville du socialisme réel. Ceci fut fait en 1979 et de nouveau après 1989, avec de nouveaux points de vue. Aujourd'hui, le débat à propos de la ville socialiste n'est pas seulement académique ; dans de nouvelles démocraties, dans des villes sous pression économique, les élites politiques nationales et locales, les acteurs économiques, les habitants, l'opinion publique voient d'un œil nouveau cette phase du développement urbain. Les articles rassemblés dans ce numéro spécial de la revue Histoire Urbaine montrent différents aspects de ces enjeux dans des pays comme l'Allemagne, l'Arménie, la Roumanie, la Russie

Métropolisation et démocratie locale à Varsovie

The paper presents how territorial and administrative structures of the polish capital city were transformed from 1990 to 2002, due to the implementation of the decentralization and then of territorial reforms. The administrative regime of Warsaw which was reset in 1990, 1994, and in 2002, evolved from a decentralization to a phase of territorial recentralization. Meanwhile, the territorial reform of the state and the application of the NUTS included Warsaw in a complex system. The economical and geographical manifestations of metropolization took place in this unstable framework.L'article expose comment les structures territoriales et administratives de la capitale polonaise se sont transformées de 1990 à 2002 sous l'effet de la mise en place de la décentralisation, puis des réformes territoriales. Le régime administratif et territorial de Varsovie qui a été remanié en 1990 et 1994, puis en 2002, a évolué dans le sens d'une décentralisation poussée à laquelle a succédé une recentralisation territoriale. Dans le même temps, la réforme territoriale de l'Etat et la mise en place de la Nomenclature des Unités Territoriales Statistiques a inclus Varsovie dans un système emboîté complexe. C'est dans ce cadre instable que les logiques économiques et spatiales de la métropolisation se sont mises en place

Métropolisation et habitat dans les pays d'Europe centrale et orientale

Texte publié en anglais sous le titre " Metropolization and Settlement in the Central and Eastern European Countries " dans FALTAN L. & GAJDOŠ P., 2008, Regional disparities in Central Europe, Bratislava, UNESCO NK-MOST, pp.180-195Metropolization is a geographical process that affects also the territories of Central and Eastern Europe. Population and incomes are more and more concentrated in the biggest agglomerations. The consequences are evident on the economical functioning of cities; they affect also structures and dynamics of housing. The paper shows first how, at the national scale, the situation of housing was transformed: the stagnation, inherited from a structural shortage, has been lasting unto the 2000s. The return of house building is going on with a new framework, but did not manage to resolve the lacking of dwellings. Ar the local scale, capital cities are very specific local real estate markets, because they are very engaged in metropolization. They polarize the major part of construction, and offer more expansive but often smaller dwellings than in average in the state. The intra-urban spatial configurations show that metropolization in Central and Eastern Europe produce original mechanisms of socio-spatial differenciation.La métropolisation est un processus géographique qui affecte aussi les territoires d'Europe centrale et orientale. La population et les revenus sont de plus en plus concentrés dans les plus grandes agglomérations. Les conséquences sont évidentes sur le fonctionnement économique des villes ; elles affectent également les structures et les dynamiques de l'habitat. L'article montre tout d'abord comment à l'échelle nationale la situation du logement s'est transformée : le marasme de la construction, hérité d'une pénurie structurelle a duré jusque dans les années 2000. La reprise de la construction de logements se fait dans de nouveaux cadres, mais n'a pas résorbé le manque de logements. A l'échelle locale, les capitales d'Etat constituent des marchés locaux très spécifiques car très engagé dans la métropolisation. Elles polarisent une part importante de l'effort de construction, et offrent des logements plus chers mais souvent plus petits que dans la moyenne de l'Etat. Les configurations spatiales intra-urbaines montrent que la métropolisation en Europe centrale et orientale produit des mécanismes originaux de différenciation socio-spatiale