The theoretical discussion about the perturban and the concretion of an urban planning in a complex environment: The case of Barcelona and Toulouse

The debate focused on the contraposition of urban and rural environments has been diluting gradually but has acquired more complexity with time. The differences between rural and urban are not today drastic neither radical: they are blurred throughout the territory. The periurban extends in a transitional space where several fringes that go from greater to smaller rurality are superposed in function of the distance to the central city. In this environment, to carry out a quality agrarian activity becomes more and more difficult. For this reason, in the Metropolitan Region of Barcelona the preservation of land spaces and the development of the agricultural exploitations has been envisaged with projects as the Agrarian Park of Baix Llobregat. In the Urban Area of Toulouse the situation is similar, but the institutional and associative framework guarantees the maintenance of the periurban agriculture and it is not necessary to create extraordinary measures of planning.