TOWARDS AN AMERICANIZATION OF FRENCH METROPOLITAN AREAS ? Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot Directeur de Recherche au CNRS CERVL-CNRS/ IEP de Bordeaux Domaine universitaire 11, allée Ausone 33607 Pessac Cedex/ France e-mail :
[email protected] Paper presented at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, February 2004, and at the International Metropolitan Observatory Meeting, 9-10 January 2004, Bordeaux, Pôle Universitaire de Bordeaux. The author expresses his gratitude to the LASMAS-IdL and to Alexandre Kych for having allowed him to use 1999 census data in application of the data exchange agreement between CNRS and INSEE, as well as to Monique Perronnet-Menault (TEMIBER-CNRS, Bordeaux) for her invaluable help in producing maps of French urban areas. I. Metropolization and urban sprawl in French metropolitan areas There are two main official measures of urbanization defined by the French census, INSEE (Julien 2000): 1. the urban unit (unité urbaine) fits the agglomeration concept. It includes two categories : a. the urban agglomeration : a group of communes whose population is at least 2.000 inhabitants + a continuity of the built environment, i.e. there are no gaps (agricultural land, forest) of more than 200 meters (a criterion also used in Switzerland) b. the isolated city : the same definition applied to a sole commune France had 1.995 urban units at the last census conducted in 1999. 2. officially introduced in 1996 in order to measure in a better way the so-called periurbanization phenomenon (urban sprawl towards distant suburbs), the metropolitan area (aire urbaine) includes : a. an urban pole (pôle urbain) = an urban unit with at least 5.000 jobs b.