The present dossier is an invitation to reconsider the link, which is often described as mechanical, between decentralisation and local development. The analyses issuing from the urbanised public spheres of South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, India and Senegal, bring to light the gap between...

The process of decentralisation at national level and of recentralisation of South African metropolitan zones is followed, in the Cape, by a large scale public action aimed at upgrading the city to a world class status, while reducing sociospatial disparities inherited from apartheid. The first...