Lucas Spierenburg (p), Sander van Cranenburgh, Oded Cats

Sébastien Bourdin

This study investigates whether the "wrong side of the tracks" phenomenon, where physical infrastructure associates with residential segregation patterns, extends to European cities where explicit segregation policies were historically absent. While this relationship has been extensively documented in the United States, where infrastructure was deliberately used to engineer segregation, its applicability to European cities remains uncertain. We analyze 496 cities across eight European countries (UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and Netherlands) using harmonized demographic data on migrant populations at 100x100m² resolution. Our novel methodological framework quantifies the spatial correspondence between urban fragments (defined by railways, major roads, and waterways) and demographic regions (identified through spatial clustering) using a purity score metric and Monte Carlo testing procedure to control for chance alignments. Our preliminary results from eight pilot cities reveal substantial heterogeneity in this relationship. Cities like Freiburg and The Hague show strong alignment between infrastructure and demographic boundaries (q = 0.996), while Barcelona and Lyon demonstrate inverse relationships (q = 0.002), where migrant populations often center around transportation nodes and extend across infrastructure boundaries. This variation challenges the universality of infrastructure-driven segregation and suggests that local context significantly influences the relationship between physical barriers and social boundaries. These findings have important implications for urban policy, indicating that universal approaches to reducing physical barriers may not uniformly impact segregation patterns. Furthermore, our methodological framework provides a robust approach for analyzing spatial pattern associations that can be applied beyond segregation studies to other urban research contexts.

Shraddha Pandit (p), Arindam Biswas

Sébastien Bourdin

This study examines the divergent patterns of spatial polarization in Indian cities in the post-reform period. It considers empirical evidence from traditional (e.g., Mumbai, Delhi) and emerging metropolises (e.g., Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad). Leveraging Consistent and Corrected Nighttime Light (CCNL) data – a novel methodological approach to overcome India’s urban data limitations, we analyze the varied polarization patterns across the five cities. The study incorporates spatial autocorrelation analysis to identify statistically significant high and low values of night light pixels within the urban contiguous areas and trace their evolution over five time points to interpret spatial polarization. It also employs relevant policy and document analysis of the spatially polarizing cities to analyze how their city-specific neoliberal spatial policies interacted with their historical economic structures and socio-political factors to shape the polarization outcomes. The analysis reveals that Mumbai, Ahmedabad and partially Hyderabad exhibit spatial polarization at the urban agglomeration (UA) scale, whereas Delhi and Bangalore mostly portray peripheral marginalization with urban expansion. The study substantiates that polarization stems from the city-specific neoliberal policy tools, historical economic structure and socio-political divide. The study reveals that while neoliberal reforms drive significant urban spatial divides through deindustrialization, place-based politics and global image building, the possibilities of cities experiencing spatial polarization are mediated by city-specific spatial policy tools, their pre-existing economic profiles, and place-based ethnocentrism. The study methodologically advances understanding of inequality research by validating the use of nighttime light (NTL) data for spatial polarization studies in data-scarce contexts like India. It combines cluster analysis with policy studies to unfold the dynamics of spatial polarization of both traditional and emerging Indian metropolises.
Keywords:
Spatial polarization, Indian metropolis, Consistent and Corrected Nighttime Light Data, Policy reforms, Neoliberalism, Spatial policies.

Emma Teillet (p), Sabrina Dermine, Eric Châtelet

Sébastien Bourdin

Agricultural territories are facing complex transformations linked to rising input costs, price volatility, regulatory constraints and the effects of climate change. Faced with these challenges, stakeholders at different scales are implementing agricultural system transition strategies. However, these initiatives, often limited to the scale of a single farm or a sector, produce effects that go beyond these action frameworks, without their territorial impacts always being measured. It is therefore necessary to develop new conceptual tools to analyze the sustainability of agricultural transitions on a territorial scale.

This article proposes an analytical framework based on an integrative literature review of sustainability transition studies. It draws on contributions from socio-ecological approaches, particularly those developed around the notion of resilience, and from the territorial metabolism approach. In particular, we draw on work on the territorial transformation approach and the concept of territorial capability. The latter notion is closely linked to resilience, defined as the capacity of a system to adapt to change and modify its functioning.

To test this framework, an empirical application is planned for 2025 on two agricultural systems in transition in the Aube department (France): an agricultural methanization unit and the development of a hemp sector. The study is based on semi-directive interviews with the stakeholders involved and collective workshops to co-construct a representation of territorial metabolism and establish a resilience diagnosis. The aim is to identify the interactions between these local transitions and broader territorial dynamics.

By combining territorial transformation, territorial metabolism and resilience, this article proposes an operational analytical framework for assessing the sustainability of agricultural transformations. Its empirical application aims to produce decision-support tools to help stakeholders maneuver transformations towards more sustainable territorial trajectories.