The social dimension of territorial cohesion.

Sophie de Ruffray (1, 2) , Grégory Hamez (2, 3)

1 IDEES - Identité et Différenciation de l’Espace, de l’Environnement et des Sociétés
2 CEGUM - Centre d'Etudes Géographiques de l'Université Paul Verlaine-Metz
3 GC (UMR_8504) - Géographie-cités

There is a relative consensus about the multidimensional nature of territorial cohesion, encompassing economy, environment and society. However, its social dimension is rarely analysed (Faludi 2003, Schön, 2005). Following the Reports on Cohesion and EU ministerial meetings on spatial planning, this social dimension namely means “accessibility to basic services and facilities”. The lack of attention is usually explained by a lack of data. This paper proposes a way to overcome the crucial challenges of data availability. The objective is to show the interest of tackling social questions at a local scale (i.e a combination of LAU (Local Administrative Unit) 1 and 2 in the European context) and its feasibility: an appropriate methodology may provide interesting results even with a limited set of data. The methodology relies on the fuzzy sets theory. This theory helps identifying influence areas of service providers following different policy perspectives: the minimum offer of services; the overlap between influence areas; or the territorial weaknesses in terms of unique membership to a service provider. The combination of these three perspectives gives an image of the various situations of the LAU in terms of access to basic services. The results of the methodology underline crucial challenges in the definition of the concept of territorial cohesion. Firstly, the question of redistribution is raised – if a European cohesive territory means an equal access of citizens to basic services, how to achieve this goal in spite of different national traditions in the organisation and use of services? Secondly, the concept helps putting back the citizens at the heart of the analysis, as well as their needs in everyday life. This is worth considering, in a time of general scepticism about the European Union in terms of remoteness from everyday concerns, although this raises also the question of the European model of society in which the European citizens recognize.

Mots clés: territorial cohesion; accessibility to basic services; maternity hospitals; Grande Region

Domaines: Géographie

Sophie de Ruffray, Grégory Hamez. The social dimension of territorial cohesion.: Geographic visions. 48th Congress of the European Regional Science Association, Aug 2008, Liverpool, Royaume-Uni. ⟨halshs-00533841⟩