Réflexion sur une stratégie d’organisation des espaces urbains frontaliers : agglomérations ou réseaux de villes transfrontaliers dans l’espace Saar-Lor-Lux

The article is divided into two large portions: The trend towards forming conurbations and the thoughts on a strategy of territorial organisation.

First, the article presents the various definitions of conurbations in each country. Certain definitions use statistical criteria more strongly. The terminology for defining urban spaces also varies strongly from country to country. Under consideration of the complexity of the approach to the term "city", Europe is trying to find a shared term for all countries. It should be able to permanently describe the urban spaces and to cover several European states.

In a second part, the cross-border conurbations are highlighted and localised. According to the INSEE definition, there are 7 cross-border conurbations in the SaarLorLux region.

Out of these conurbations, two are presented as pilot projects for introduction of a new organisation strategy. These conurbations are introduced in the second chapter. First, there is the conurbation Longwy – Differdange-Athus (115,000 residents) that pursues the strategy of "integrated planning". The second conurbation is the conurbation Esch-sur-Alzette – Villerupt – Audun-le-Tiche (70,000 residents). It pursues the logic of a city network.

The second part of this article starts with thoughts on the strategy of the cross-border conurbation. This strategy is promoted by the political will to accept the existence of these conurbations and by continuing what has been achieved so far. The obstacles to cooperation and creation of cross-border conurbations are three-fold: Some issues are shared by all conurbations (e.g. exchange of resources, also for tax reasons), some issues only refer to cross-border conurbations (e.g. lack of inter-municipal European and cross-border structures), and issues that vary from border state to border state (e.g. tax competencies and resources differ and may acerbate competition, linguistic and cultural differences, as well as morphological breaks). The next section deals with the logic of the conurbation and the "city network". This usually shows the differences between the city border spaces. These conurbations are better able to act due to the flows and morphology. These strategies are predominant and perceived on multiple levels, since they are more flexible.

The article ends with a conclusion on the fact that these initiatives present an option for space, though there are always many obstacles remaining.