Territories and metropolization

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Territories are the crucible of individual and collective identities and are built in the long term. While the term “territory” originally referred to the national scale, it is now mobilized at all levels, right down to the local scale. This is due to three major processes: urbanization, “Europeanization” and the globalization of spaces.

Metropolization plays a particularly important role in this territorial reconfiguration. The “loi de modernisation de l’action publique territoriale et d’affirmation des métropoles” (Law on the modernization of territorial public action and the affirmation of metropolitan areas) is its direct translation. As suction pumps and scale commutators connected to globalization, metropolises are often accused of dissociating themselves from their regional roots and confiscating the resources necessary to the harmonious and equitable development of territories.

Besides creating new types of territorial organization, does metropolization produce spatial inequality? As part of its reflection on the globalized urban dynamics, La Fabrique de la Cité will question the ambivalent and complex relationships between metropolization and territorial restructurings.