The aim of the 3Land project is to redevelop a trinational territory situated to the north of Basel, on both sides of the Rhine. This project has been the subject of two successive cross-border planning agreements between the municipalities concerned in Switzerland, France and Germany. Before these agreements were signed, an urban vision was produced by MVRDV/Cabane/Josepy and completed later by the LIN agency. The project focuses on the densification of a mixed use zone in the heart of the Basel cross-border metropolitan area, the improvement of the living environment and mobility and also economic redevelopment.
In Europe at the beginning of the year 2020, due to the Covid19 epidemic, numerous national borders were abruptly closed. These closures, the first of their kind, referred to as "covidfencing" in this article, were a serious setback for many cross-border workers. This episode has demonstrated the deterritorialisation of numerous activities in Europe, which are no longer tied to one territory, but to several, and the dependency of these activities on borders.
Among the palette of European tools available to support the development of cross-border territories, this essay considers the impact that an Internationale BauAusstellung (IBA, International Architecture Exhibition) would have on the territorial development of the Greater Region. First of all it describes the specific nature of this spatial development tool, then identifies the specific characteristics of the Greater Region which would justify the use of such a tool. It concludes with a set of reasoned proposals on procedure and possible outcomes.
This article details the process of the formation of the Greater Region as a specific space for cross-border cooperation in Western Europe. The author recounts the history and background to this cooperation and presents the different regions making up the cross-border territory. He then explains its specific socio-economic features through the themes of cross-border working and labour immigration. Finally, he details several cooperation projects initiated, including the cross-border polycentric metropolitan region (RMPT) project. This last example is emblematic of the difficulties involved in future cooperation in this territory.
The Greater Geneva consultation is intended to renew the way territories look to the future taking into account sustainable development issues. This consultation involves the active participation of all the actors in the territory along with experts in territorial development and other related fields. The process has produced 7 concrete, mapped-out proposals for the transition of the cross-border territory of Greater Geneva. The aim of these proposals is to raise awareness among citizens, politicians and other actors of the urgency of the climate change issue and the wide variety of possible ways of responding to it.
The aim of the MMUST is to develop a decision support tool and to evaluate transport policies in favour of cross-border mobility in the Greater Region. This tool is being developed through a scientific partnership involving researchers working on mobility and transport from three of the countries in the Greater Region and through consultation with the main public actors that manage the mobility flows studied. The tool developed has the following features: a unified approach to all the mobility transport data available, a multimodal approach allowing the impact to be assessed of all types of transport existing or to be promoted and prospective approach through the evaluation by enquiry and modelling of different alternative mobility scenarios.
Since 2007, the Trinational Agglomeration of Basel has allowed the coordination and implementation of concrete measures across the entire territory of the agglomeration. These measures meet the objective of articulating the preservation of landscapes,, the management of urban development and the implementation of public transport services within the territory of the agglomeration. The project is led by a trinational association Agglo Basel of which all the local authorities making up the agglomeration are members. The overall project is designed to ensure that investments in infrastructure are coordinated and balanced between the three national components of the agglomeration.
The EMR Connect project arose out of the difficulties encountered by operators in the field in establishing a cross-border public transport network. The governance of the project is provided by the main public transport operators in the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion. The project is intended to provide a practical service and plans to create a shared body of knowledge of the cross-border transport network, simple paperless resources for passengers and targeted projects to encourage intermodality.
Due to its attractiveness, since the end of the 20th century, Luxembourg has seen strong growth. This development has occurred more or less coherently at a functional level, but is very fragmented at the social level. In fact, many highly qualified workers now live in this cross-border metropolitan area. This article analyses this phenomenon based on spatial data with the aim of understanding how this young territory is structured according to the transport networks and the borders.
The Center for Inter American and Border Studies (CIBS) has established itself as a benchmark in the field of border studies by capitalising on the expertise on its own border territory. As well as often being high-profile, this territory presents some important challenges in terms of governance, demography and migration, as well as access to education and healthcare, employment and economic development. To meet these challenges the centre has developed an interdisciplinary approach specific to the territory studied, and a high level of expertise.
