Les logiques territoriales des « mondes de production » de petites villes

While the notion of « small town » is subject to many debates, the interpretation of their development dynamics tends to place them in a relationship of active dependence on different forms of metropolitan training to overcome a larger phenomenon of deindustrialisation. Faced with a relative geographic shift in economic activity to the benefit of metropolitan areas, these territories would find themselves « under influence » and their traditional functions of centrality undermined.In the small towns of Gaillac and Graulhet (Tarn), we observe the emergence of new markets and products leading us to question the social arrangements governing these recompositions of the activity. These socio-economic interactions are then embedded in « worlds of production ». They also give us to see « centralities of innovation » organized from these small towns. Then, the spatial components of these economic relations inform us about cities which are renewing their places in the globalization of the economy through socio-economic interactions partly uncoupled from the mediation functions exercised by their regional urban environment (the medium-sized towns of Castres, Albi and the metropolitan area of Toulouse).