This working paper highlights the thematic field “mobility and transports” and presents the challenges which occur in terms of territorial development for the Greater Region. It specifically focuses on the territorial distribution of cross-border worker movements and on the reliance on cars within the Greater Region, as well as on the influence of European policies on the way challenges inherent to cross-border transport are addressed.
This volume brings together contributions from the symposium "Cross-border Representations" (held September 16 and 17, 2010 at Mulhouse University Institute of Technology, University of Upper Alsace, UHA). It contains analysis of the practices, identities, forms of governance, and policy in cross-border territories such as the Greater Region, the PAMINA area, the border regions between France and Geneva, France and Spain, and other French border territories including Brazil and Africa. With twenty contributions, the book offers insights from politicians, historians, geographers, researchers in the field of information science, sociologists, and linguists.
The author examines the question of whether the intensive number of commuters can actually be described - as is usually proclaimed in public discourse – as a sign of progressive integration or whether it can be interpreted more as an indication of persistent socio-economic imbalances between the sub-regions. To do this, he juxtaposes political visions with empirical realities. In the conclusion “Grenzüberschreitender Arbeitsmarkt zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit” (Cross-Border Labor Market Between Demand and Reality) Christian WILLE underlines the asymmetrical configuration of employment. On the one hand, this is due to Luxembourg’s strong expansion of the service sector and the central position with regard to cross-border employment associated with it; on the other hand, it is clear to what extent the regions in northern France, for example, are still suffering from the structural change. It is therefore more appropriate to speak of a regional divergence in employment. At the same time, however, this heterogeneity of socio-economic conditions must be recognized as a driving force for cross-border employment.
In “Contribution B/Ordering in the Greater Region. Mobilities – Borders – Identities” Christian WILLE questions the quadrangle inhabitants' sense of belonging as predicted in the model for regional-political cooperation in the Greater Region. The author examines “which orders of self/other are apparent in the self image of the inhabitants of the Greater Region and to what extent they suggest a cross-border identity” (p. 52) and elaborates on three central features of identity constructions.
