Aspects fonciers de l'aménagement de l'espace rural

The feudal and peasant conceptions of land ownership have evolved towards m&rcanWe forms. Land is a marketable commodity and it is its price which rules the social and economic division of space. The land policy of local authorities tends to serve as a corrective to this mechanism, which results in favouring the most profitable uses of land to the disadvantage of farm and forest. It tends to introduce a voluntary economy of space depending on planning aims. In rural areas these aims concern the complementarity of — or the competition between — farm development and the development of other activities, in other words between the various functions that society expects rural land to fullfill : the production of goods the basis for activities, scenery, environment etc. Land ownership is often the farming sector's only bargaining power; a sector dominated both economically and socially. Moreover the increase of land values which historically was used as a means of rural development, is tending to no longer be controlled by local rural land owners. This is why land owners widely resist the present official land policy, the social utility of which is often contested. In fact, land policy must take into account the needs of the farm economy together with other needs. From this point of view three strategies can be proposed concerning the land policy aspects of the planning of three main types of zones : areas of urban pressure, devitalized areas and areas of rural development. The first will requide arbitration between conflicting land uses ; the second will require restrictions on a colonial type of land conquest and the third an organization of the coexistence of complementary functions.