Suitable area for Paris to get a French global city region

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Suitable area for Paris to get a French global city region

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Abstract

As Saskia Sassen well defined it, a global city region is a region that “overlaps the global city” . Today, it can be admitted that Paris has a lot features that make this city close to a “global city”, such as the central corporate functions, and the “highly specialized and networked services sector” that Sassen mentions, but also a growing participation to transnational networks (with the Paris Bourse for instance). Paris is the second city in the world for the number of international organization centers (OCDE, UNESCO…). But, unfortunately, the “raising degree of spatial and socioeconomic inequality” is another global city's characteristic that Paris shares.

If Paris meets the criteria of a global city, the area that encompasses this global city can be called a global city region. Then, following Sassen's analysis, “both concepts have a problem with boundaries”.

That is exactly the problem of Paris and the Paris area. Today, there are twelve million people living in the Ile-de-France - which is the administrative region that includes the French capital, also called the “région parisienne” – among which 90% live in Paris. It is the gathering of eight administrative subdivisions, the “départements”. The region Ile-de-France remains one of the richest in the world. However, the local councilors and the citizens, as well as the economic decision-makers, have noticed that their region is losing competitiveness within the globalized world. Many features characterize this loss of dynamism: lack of innovative and structuring projects, illegibility of the town and country planning and an inaudible political voice are some of them.

This last problem is linked to the main one, recently well summed up by President Sarkozy: “nobody knows who decides”. Thus, Ile-de-France's central weakness is about power and authority in the region.

It is clear that things have to be changed in the administrative organization of the Paris area, in order to turn the entire region into an efficient global city region.

Introduction
The problem of Paris and the Paris area
Consensus about the inefficiency of the present institutional framework of the Paris region
1. The current size and institutional organization of Paris is a major problem for the region's competitiveness
2. Paris: The capital which has the name, but not the size
3. Paris surroundings: Suffering from the lack of regional cooperation
4. The Ile-de-France: An inefficient region
The only solution seems to be the creation a 'Grand Paris' for a greater efficiency
1. A lot of projects could get underway
2. The rise of many plans to adapt Paris's size to the global world
Larger Paris is the solution, the question of its expense raises the debate
1. The reefs of both the fearful and the very ambitious projects
Conclusion
Bibliography

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[...] As a global city region, the Paris region has to learn how make its components cooperate, in order to gain competitiveness. Many plans and projects have been thought about, but a lot of them stumble on one of their numerous reefs. The project that seems to be the most achieved is the one by Senator Philippe Dallier, considering the gathering of all the “petite couronne”'s départements with Paris, within a new structure to which some powers and a consequent budget would be delegated. [...]

[...] What is sure now is that the current size of Paris is not accurate for an efficient French world city region. The authorities have to rethink the institutional organization of the region, in order to recreate social and economical cohesion, and to kick-start the regional economy. Several candidates and politicians raised public awareness on that matter during the latest local elections; this concern has seriously been taken into account by President Sarkozy himself, since a new Ministry[16] has specifically been created in March. [...]

[...] Indeed, a lot of people live and work outside of Paris but, having no car, they have to cross the city everyday to get from one point to another, the urban transportation being only made to leave or to go to Paris. This kind of projects would only be possible when the borders of the current administrative structures have moved. For instance, the leader of the right at the Ile-de-France's Council proposed a “Plan Marshall for the public transport in the Ile-de-France” That is the same for a great “economic agency” for the Paris area economic development. [...]

[...] The only solution seems to be the creation a “Grand Paris” for a greater efficiency For all the reasons that have been seen, it seems obvious to the authorities that a great reform is compulsory to give back to the French global city region its competitiveness. It is the only way to give Paris the size deserved to a global city, but also to overcome local selfishness that is so detrimental to social cohesion and economic efficiency. However the projects are numerous; each of them corresponds to a specific term, like the “Paris métropole” or the “Grand Paris”. [...]

[...] When having a look at the Ile-de-France's population map, it is easy to see that the Paris agglomeration doesn't include the entire region at all. Admittedly, it is larger than the “petite couronne” but for instance, as far as the Seine-et-Marne's territory is concerned, there are no more than which are considered as part of this Paris agglomeration. That is why the borders' enlargement of an authority which would regulate and unify the Paris region should not be dissolved and lost on such a large territory. [...]

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