Priorités nationales et maillons transfrontaliers dans les réseaux de transports autour de l’aire métropolitaine de Lille (1950-1980)

Transport infrastructure is far from neutral ; it constitutes a major factor in shaping town and country planning. The evolution of this issue between the 1950s and 80s in the cross-border area of Lille is the central concern of this paper. It provides a telling example of a scale change resulting from the reaction of government and socio-economic actors to European challenges in the area of transport.Since the 1980s, these challenges have undermined historically entrenched national practices to dispel the notion of “transport as a bastion of nationalism”.