Suburbs

In France, 95% of the population, or 61 million inhabitants, live in city-influenced dwellings. Once developed around a historic centre, cities with the development of rail and road networks have extended their expansion to the suburbs. Cities are now expanding into new territories. Researchers explore, analyse the development of suburban areas and try to foresee future trends.
Sandrine Berroir, geographer at the Géographie-Cités laboratory, highlights the reorganisation of metropolitan areas in the context of urban sprawl, the increasing dilution of urban forms, in connection to the development of communication and exchange networks. She explains how a new hierarchy of activity centres is cropping up together with a redistribution of flows with greater mobility within urban outskirts.