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Dans le contexte actuel de mobilité généralisée (des biens, des connaissances, mais aussi des consommateurs), tout type de territoire est confronté à la multiplicité des enjeux de développement : la compétitivité des activités industrielles, mais aussi l’attractivité touristique ou résidentielle. Cet article discute le développement des régions périphériques en particulier et présente le cas de la région de la Gruyère (canton de Fribourg, Suisse). Comme de nombreuses régions périphériques, la région a connu une dynamique de développement exogène, qui concernait d’abord les activités industrielles, puis également les activités résidentielles. Des tensions ont résulté de ce développement parce qu’il reposait sur une importante urbanisation. Un « milieu ancreur élargi » se constitue aujourd’hui pour endogénéiser le développement, ce qui passe par une préservation des ressources patrimoniales rurales de la région, notamment foncières.

In the current context of widespread mobility (of goods, knowledge, but also of consumers), every type of territory has to deal with the multiplicity of development challenges: the competitiveness of industrial activities, but also tourist and residential attractiveness. This paper discusses the development of peripheral regions in particular and presents the case of the Gruyère region (canton of Fribourg, Switzerland). Like many peripheral regions, this region has experienced a dynamic of exogenous development, based first on industrial activities and then on residential activities. Land was a generic resource for the development of these activities. Tensions emerged in the Gruyère region because this development required an extensive urbanization. Beyond the resolution of tensions, the potential of synergies and creation of value based on the rural heritage of the trajectory emerged. Indeed, in today's globalized economy, land contributes to the creation of economic value through its symbolic properties: landscape and environmental properties are specific resources and now support various types of economic activities. An “enlarged anchoring milieu” , which promotes a qualitative development, is currently under development. In other words, regarding urban-rural relationships at the national scale, the milieu works to endogenize development. Its major challenge is the preservation of the region’s rural heritage resources, including land. Indeed, the milieu realizes that the legacy of the rural trajectory of La Gruyère plays a role in its current competitiveness and will play an even more important role in the future. This case shows that innovation, in addition to being at the origin of development and concerning basic activities (most of the time, theoretically, productive), also concerns other activities, and/or the ways in which they are coordinated.