Les bouleversements induits par la métropolisation ont pour conséquence une recomposition territoriale à toutes les échelles. Avec l’affirmation de la décentralisation, les villes tissent des liens inédits qui renouvellent le concept de réseau. L’« interterritorialité » compte autant que les liens de proximité hérités. En Lorraine, la coopération Nancy-Metz initiée dès les années 1960 a été régénérée à la fin des années 1990 avec l’émergence du Sillon Lorrain. Aux côtés de Thionville et d’Épinal, Metz et Nancy constituent depuis 2012 un pôle métropolitain. La récente réforme de la carte régionale renforce les enjeux dans cet espace politique en construction où les problématiques métropolitaines et frontalières prennent une importance grandissante.Initialement porté grâce à un partenariat CIFRE, ce travail de recherche doctorale mène une réflexion sur la réalité fonctionnelle de cet espace émergent en mobilisant les outils de la géographie régionale appliquée. L’analyse s’appuie notamment sur les liaisons de mobilité interurbaine, l’inscription du Sillon dans son contexte régional (Grand Est) et transfrontalier (Grande Région) et encore sur le défi de la fragmentation socio-spatiale. L’analyse révèle que la métropolisation dans le sillon est partielle. Elle relève de dynamiques tant endogènes (Metz et Nancy) qu’exogènes (Luxembourg). Les mobilités constituent l’une des facettes de la réalité fonctionnelle de cet espace. Elles tendent à remodeler les caractéristiques socio-économiques, même si le legs industriel demeure prégnant. Ce travail exploratoire est force de proposition. Il avance des pistes de réflexion et se veut utile pour gérer des espaces discontinus, dilatés et en transition. / The upheavals linked to metropolization induce a territorial restructuring process. With decentralization, cities build networks. "Inter-territoriality" becomes a new configuration, as relevant as inherited proximity links. In Lorraine, the cooperation between Nancy and Metz was reactivated in the 1990's with the emergence of the "Sillon Lorrain". Since 2012, along with Thionville and Épinal, Nancy and Metz form a "pôle métropolitain". The current reform of the regional administrative map reinforces the stakes in this emerging political space. Borders and metropolitan issues are becoming increasingly important.This PhD work was supervised by a "CIFRE" partnership. Using the tools of regional applied geography, this reflexion focuses on the functional reality of this emergent space. It highlights mobility flows, on a regional and cross-border context, and spatial differentiation.The thesis reveals the incomplete metropolization of the Sillon Lorrain. The process is both endogenous (Metz and Nancy) and exogenous (Luxembourg). Mobility flows constitute one of the facets of the functional reality in this space. They tend to transform the socio-economic characteristics, in spite of the strong industrial legacy. This work provides suggestions in order to manage discontinuous, dilated and transitional spaces.

Réalisée en lien avec une activité professionnelle au sein d'un observatoire régional emploi formation, cette thèse porte sur l'émergence et le fonctionnement de dispositifs visant à coordonner des politiques publiques d'éducation-formation, d'emploi et de développement économique, sur des espaces infra régionaux en Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Couvrant la période de 2005 à 2010, elle part de l'hypothèse selon laquelle, s'appuyant sur des apprentissages résultant d'expériences antérieures, ces dispositifs instrumenteraient un nouvel « espace fonctionnel » qui décloisonnerait ces trois secteurs de l'action publique autour d'un référent commun consistant à développer les possibilités d'accès à l'emploi. Cette perspective se nourrit d'initiatives locales qui, d'emblée, visent à intégrer la formation, l'emploi et le développement économique. La réussite de cette intégration dépend de la capacité conjointe des promoteurs des dispositifs et des acteurs locaux à construire des liens de confiance au cours de leurs interactions grâce, notamment, à la mobilisation de connaissances et d'expertises en phase avec les spécificités de ces nouveaux instruments. Au travers de ce processus, se joue la convergence entre la promotion d'initiatives locales « intégrées » et la recherche d'un ancrage territorial de la part des acteurs qui, comme la Région, n'en disposent pas. / This thesis, undertaken together with a professional activity with a regional employment-vocational training observatory, deals with the emergence and functioning of devices aimed at coordinating public policies for education-training, employment and economic development within Provence – Alpes – Côte d'Azur region. Covering the period between 2005 and 2010, the idea is that, based on social learning from passed experiences, these devices would be instrumental in creating new “functional space” de-compartmentalizing these three sections of public action around a common denominator aiming at developing employment accessibility. This perspective would benefit from local initiatives, which from the start, focused on integrating vocational training, employment and economic development. The success of the integration depends on the joint capacity of both the devices instigators and the local actors to build a trusting relationship by interacting and mobilizing their knowledge and expertise in accordance with the specificities of these new tools. Through this process, the issue at hand is the convergence between promoting local “integrated” initiatives and finding a territorial foothold for the actors, who, like the PACA regional council, have none.

Species distribution and composition of bird communities of South Africa is not accidental, but is influenced by environmental conditions, habitat structure, and natural history of the area. Functional traits of the species (morphology, dietary strategies or reproductive parameters) give information on how the individuals interact with the environment they live in. The description of the functional characteristics, expose specific adaptations and the role of the species in the studied ecosystem. On the basis of functional characteristics we are able to estimate functional diversity of studied community. The spatial variability of species and functional diversity allocates longitudinal gradient. Regarding the morphological and reproductive parameters that are continuous in nature and more species- specific, we observe a faster increase in functional diversity. Considering the feeding preferences that are categorical and show a limited number of levels, a modest increase in functional diversity apparent is. Dietary functional diversity is more evenly distributed. Relationship between the functional and species diversity can provide us with information about how species are added to the community or answer the question to what extent the higher number of species requires more ecological space. The...

The study investigates the development of church infrastructure within the urban environment. A symbiotic interaction between church form and urban conditions is proposed and contextualised through analysis of existing church models and current spatial concerns within Pretoria’s inner-city. The potential of church as agent for urban renewal and community development is identified and the study generates a spatial and programmatic model aligned with the inner-city’s need for meaningful and integrated interventions. A systemic definition of church proposes a multi-layered programme based on partnership and interaction while alternative church positioning suggests the concept of re-claiming inner-city spaces, applied through the re-development of the Schubart Park housing complex. AFRIKAANS : Hierdie studie ondersoek die ontwikkeling van kerk infrastruktuur in die stedelike omgewing. ‘n Simbiotiese interaksie tussen kerkvorm en stedelike kondisies word voorgestel en gekontekstualiseer deur analise van bestaande kerk modelle en ruimtelike kwessies in die middestad van Pretoria. studie identifiseer die potensiaal van kerk as agent vir stedelike hernuwing en gemeenskapsontwikkeling en vervolgens word n ruimtelike en programmatiese model in lyn gestel met die middestad se tekort aan betekenisvolle en geintegreerde ingrypings. Sistemiese definisie van kerk stel n gelaagde program voor gebasseer op vennootskap en interaksie terwyl alternatiewe plasing van die hergebruik van stedelike ruimtes voorstel wat toegepas word deur die herontwikkeling van die Schubart Park behuisings kompleks. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

The thesis seeks to demonstrate that during the period between 1986 and 2006, some of the principal cities of the Spanish metropolitan system1, have undergone significant change in terms of their European competitiveness. It is suggested that in the case of Madrid and Barcelona in particular this change has been of such a magnitude to proportion them a much more important place within the European spatial configuration than that which they occupied in the mid-1980s. Empirical evidence is offered to support this conjecture. The thesis lies wholly within the framework of spatial planning at the European territorial scale.It charts the comparative ascent of the Spanish cities from the moment of Spain's entry into the European Union (EU) in 1986 against the background of the development of European spatial policy, increased economic integration across Europe, the increased importance of the 'territorial' dimension of EU cohesion policy and an eventual waning of the applicability of the terminology of 'core' and 'periphery' to describe European geographical location.Part One (Chapter 1) addresses the processes of urbanisation in general from a global perspective and then focuses on metropolitan growth in a number of different historical contexts from the start of the 19th Century. Parts Two (Chapters 2-5) and Three (Chapters 6-9) of the thesis carry out analyses at two contrasting but complementary spatial scales. Part Two examines the metropolitan growth processes in Spain, in the period since 1857, detecting the historical moments in which there were surges in the metropolitan populations of the seven cities of the metropolitan system. The dimensions of the spatial units of analysis corresponding to the seven Spanish metropolitan urban regions are described, based upon a methodology first developed by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in the context of a transnational spatial planning project of the INTERREG community initiative2. These seven spatial units form the basis for a socio-economic analysis of the structure of the metropolitan system, drawing upon data principally from the 2001 Census. If by 1930 one of the key characteristics of Spain's urban system was having not just one but two cities (Madrid and Barcelona) belonging to the group of 27 cities across the world with populations in excess of 1 million inhabitants3, this same differentiation between the country's two largest cities and the remainder of the urban system is equally valid today. Spain's urban system remains clearly bicephalous in being dominated by these same two cities in terms of demographic and economic strength.Part Three begins by examining the evolution of European spatial policy against the background of an ever-enlarging European Union and changes with regard to the notion of cohesion - from a concept understood in terms of economic and social factors, to one in which the territorial dimension has become increasingly important. The European urban system is then critically examined through a number of key and influential studies, with particular regard to the rankings and hierarchies of metropolitan urban regions deriving there from and the changes in the placing of the Spanish metropolitan urban regions therein.Taking inspiration from the seminal contribution of Manuel Castells4 in the context of the structural changes resulting from the informational and technological revolution, the thesis seeks to replicate the concept of a 'space of flows'. This is carried out through a 'network analysis' approach drawing upon air passenger flows between some 28 European metropolitan urban regions of the EU15+2 group of countries, enabling the analysis of the interaction between these 28 cities. This methodology enables arriving at a number of descriptive indicators which in turn, through the application of a multi-dimensional scaling mathematical technique, permits comparing the functional and physical distances of each of the metropolitan urban regions from the centre of the 'conceptual space of air passenger flows' and the centre of gravity. The resulting map of the functional positioning of the cities offers a spatial vision of metropolitan Europe quite different to that based upon Cartesian coordinates. Such an approach enables demonstrating that cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, Helsinki, Lisbon and Athens, traditionally considered as physically peripheral to the European core area, appear to be more favourably positioned in functional terms. Furthermore in the case of Spain the results indicate that Barcelona lies closer to the centre of the conceptual 'space of air passenger flows' than Madrid.In light of this empirical evidence, together with the signs of increased economic integration across some parts of Spain, the prospects of Spain forming part of a wider European territorial concentration of flows and activities, and the recognition of the territorial capital of Madrid and Barcelona within recent EU spatial policy declarations, the thesis concludes in Part Four that these two metropolitan regions have undergone a clear consolidation and (re)positioning within the European metropolitan hierarchy.