France: Decentralization and deconcentration in the wake of late urbanization

Counterurbanization in France can be understood only in the context of the very distinctive demographic and urban history of the country. France was unusual amongst Western countries in its slow rate of population growth during the nineteenth century (van de Walle 1979) and until the Second World War (Ogden and Huss 1982). Two related consequences of this have been the late development of urbanization and all the restricted growth of industrial cities. The French form of industrialization was influenced by slow population growth, and was geographically dispersed and related to local resources (Aldrich 1987). France therefore contained few major urban-indusrial agglomerations (Hohenberg and Lees 1985), and none which could effectively compete with Pris. Paris has been hugely dominant in the development of France, and is a classic example of a primate city, not only in terms of population size, but in its functions, status and influence.