ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the “regional question” in Tunisia in order to contribute to the progress of the debate on this very sensitive question. It shows the limits and the impasses towards which centralized and technocratic approaches—conceived and imposed from “above” in the best “Jacobin” traditions—in regional development always lead. What was very interesting in the whole experience is the fact that it was a very innovative project, in the sense that it introduced in Tunisia a completely new approach to regional development and planning when it was launched in 1979. In order to understand fully the importance of the project and the hopes that it has generated in the region, a brief presentation of Central Tunisia is necessary. With the Central Tunisia Project, one authority, and only one, was in charge of the whole development of a whole region.
