This articles examines the peculiar role of mimetic behaviors in co-location processes. We start showing that geographical proximity between agents and/or firms is not a sufficient nor necessary condition for the collective performance of clusters. Other types of socio-economic proximities...

The objective of this article is to investigate the dynamics of relocations at the micro-economic level. By proposing a grid of “dynamics of proximities”, we focus on the coordination issues which seem to be missing from most of analyses carried about relocations. We apply our framework to...

The paper compares the research agendas of two different approaches of a meso-analysis which could combine industrial and spatial dynamics: the economics of proximity approach on one side, the regulation theory on the other side. Their specificities and divergences are identified in the first...

Although it is frequent, discontinuous (leapfrog) development has rarely been addressed by the literature, because traditional models are unable to conceive diverse urban forms. This article is a survey of theoretical explanations of discontinuous development. It follows two parts. First, taking...

This article aims at providing a test of the spatial mismatch hypothesis on the Bordeaux metropolitan area. Starting with a theoretical survey of the complex links between residential segregation and local labour markets, we then propose a framework allowing for a better understanding of the...

The influence of urban form on travel patterns is of growing interest among researchers. It has been notably argued that high density, mixed land use settlements reduce automobile use and distances travelled, hence energy consumption per capita. A precise characterization of urban form calls...

With the paddle of a new period of programming, the European regional policy must face the challenge of widening in the East like with that of the insertion of Europe in universalization. In this European space where exists a demographic, economic and policy concentration, in an omnipotent...

The question of the urban form-daily mobility interaction was recently renewed. The model of the Compact City aims at increasing densities to decrease the use of the automobile. However, the density-mobility interaction is questioned in the polycentric city : on one’s hand, suburban employment...

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) has given rise to a flourishing literature since the beginning of the 90’s. The EKC postulates an inverted U-shaped relationship between income and polluting emissions: there would be a level of wealth beyond which polluting emissions would decrease....

This article explores the theoretical linkages between urban sprawl and social segregation. We first present the way segregation can increase urban sprawl : according to the « flight from blight hypothesis », mechanisms of segregation may form socially homogenous areas which tend to move away...