À la recherche du rural perdu

Until recently The «rural» was a classical subject of many disciplines. But now the «rural» get lost in complex areas that are no longer neither city nor country, and which often show a surprising growth of their population. In search of this lost «rural», INRA turned to the outlook for 2030. Four scenarios in training were defined: continuously suburban «oil stain» around a single city; intermittent campaigns in a Metropolitan; accentuated contrasts between dense city/countryside and neglected countries; networking of rural areas by a network of small cities. Four types of spaces compete in all cases and are subject to conflicts of interest and ideological confrontation: agricultural production; residences; major transport infrastructure and non agricultural production; protected and maintained nature. Heavy external factors will be decisive for the future: energy crisis, food, demographic change in particular. But the multiplicity of factors involved most likely leave in place a variety of regional solutions, the basis of a geo/diversity.