65

In a region changing as fast as Greater Paris, particularly the edge of the metropolitan area, the figures from the last census may answer some interesting questions. Is the conurbation expanding? Is the city evolving towards a monocentric or a polycentric configuration? We look at commuting in the whole Parisian basin in order to understand how the huge metropolitan area interacts with its immediate surrounding area and with the other cities in the basin.If the past decade has seen a reduction of a trend that emerged in the early 1980s, the city continues to spread, and it is now extending to larger urban centres. There seems to be a reorganisation of the edge of the metropolitan area around these secondary centres, which is producing two kinds of fringe. The first, the closest to Paris, has simply become part of the metropolitan area. Most of its residents and workers now live and work in the urban area and a hierarchy is emerging between these centres. The second is not yet part of the metropolitan area, even if many of its residents are commuting to the city. This pattern is common around Paris. It is observed in almost all the large cities of the basin. The regional metropolitan centres attract and shape the region they belong to, while developing increasing links with Paris. Since there are few cross-links between the different regions of the Parisian basin, it still has a monocentric configuration: Paris interacts with all the main cities of the regions surrounding the capital region, while these cities shape their local areas.