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The spread of urban areas over the last three decades has radically changed our way of living and working in towns and in the countryside. Eroding the traditional boundaries between urban and rural areas, a new "third area" has emerged : the peri-urban area.

This ill-defined, unrecognized and largely unregulated zone has become a major hub of European development, but is also a source of social inequality and an area where land is wasted. 

Today, unbridled urban growth needs to be better understood and controlled in order to meet the challenges of the Lisbon and Gothenburg agendas. Climate change remind us of our responsibilities as citizens of the world. 

PURPLE, Arc Latin and Terres en Villes have chosen to pool their energies in order to promote European projects seeking, from a rural, agricultural and natural point of view, to achieve a better balance, to peaceably share land so that it may be put to different uses, and to create a living environment for today’s world.

It is our ambition to reconcile the town with rural areas by adopting a combination of different approaches and trying out new solutions.

 Lenie Dwarhuis, President of Purple

Antonio Saitta, President of Arc Latin

Bernard Poirier and Gérard Seigle-Vatte, Co-presidents of Terres en Villes