Services supérieurs et recomposition urbaine

Since the 1980s, we have observed an increasing tendency o f specialized services like producer services to leave their « natural habitat » in the center o f large met ropolitan areas in order to re loc at e in suburban zones. This phenomenon is particularly apparen t in North American citi es and seems to be occurring around certain French cities too. This paperinvestigates the forms taken by this new trend, and the reasons behind it. Taking economic geography and economics of cities as our theoretical basis, we first describe the main forces deter mining the agglomeration o f producer services and their preference for certain big cities. Agglomeration factors are to be looked for not only…