2. La cohabitation des populations agricoles et non-agricoles, face aux nouvelles dynamiques économiques des espaces périurbains.

With the diffuse urbanization in rural and peri-urban areas in the spheres of urban influence and the modern transformations of agriculture, we must note that over the past two decades there has been an increased recognition of the complexity of the dynamics of rural and peri-urban communities. Although no study has really been undertaken in Wallonia in the southern part of the territory, we will focus our discussion on it. The peri-urban communes of the Grand Charleroi will constitute more specifically our field of study.
It should be noted that an airport was built and expanded in 2008, covering an area of 1245 ha, to accommodate more than 3 million passengers, in the commune of Gosselies, where until recently farming participated in the economy of the region. This agriculture, which was losing its dynamism, also made it possible to feed a significant part of the agglomeration of Charleroi.
Agricultural activity is now threatened by the inexorable progress of industrial activities and private construction.
The agricultural population was predominant, and family-based agriculture was very present, but since the expropriation of agricultural land for the establishment of the airport and the installation of industrial parks like the Aéropole, a change took place, pushing agricultural activity to the background with industrial activities prevailing but also the installation of urban populations, who were arriving to enjoy the landscape amenities and real economic opportunities.
The de-structuring of farms, and even their eventual disappearance, is one of the consequences, but especially agriculture has also had to cope with the neorurals, who in many cases do not understand agriculture, which does not correspond to what they have in their "imaginary" "rural" environment.
Not only have the composition of populations in these environments undergone significant changes – an increase in the non-agricultural population with varying values and motivations and at the same time often a decrease in the agricultural population. This dynamic raises the problem of the cohabitation between the agricultural and non-agricultural populations of these environments and the roles of "traditional" land-use planning in the management of this coexistence. The objective of this presentation is to explore the implications of the real complexity of the rural and peri-urban communities in this territory of Belgium for the spatial planning of these areas as well as the complexity of the agricultural population and its production. This complexity leads us to consider the contribution of appropriate governance processes for rural and peri-urban communities. The discussion is framed by a conceptualization of the problematic based on the experiences in several countries in Western Europe and North America, but above all it will be supported by the results of field research in the southern part of Belgium: The urban area of Charleroi and its suburbs – which represent the peri-urban municipalities, according to the typology in Belgium, where a defense "committee" of young farmers has recently been set up to repel a new "industrial park" directly built on their working tools: agricultural land.
This presentation will allow us to analyze the relationships that exist between the different segments of the population but also the transformations of farms, their evolution over time and the involvement of public authorities in order to revitalize a formerly industrial region surrounded by its agricultural suburbs.