Urban Sprawl, Polycentrism and Commuting. A Comparison of Seven French Urban Areas
Résumé
In a context of growing suburbanization, does a polycentric urban structure lead to better job-housing balance? The study of seven very different French urban areas emphasises the existence of employment subcenters which, in additional to the city center, are the main destination of the workers. Two kinds of subcenters are highlighted: the subcenters, vast and close to the center with which they make up a greater center characterized by a high jobs-housing proximity, and outlying subcenters, smaller and further out but well situated along the main transport axes. The latter encourage a certain proximity to jobs for the workers living in those subcenters, but still depend strongly on the jobs located in the suburban subcenters. The evolutions observed between 1990 and 1999 seem to indicate that these subcenters would not resist the growing distance between home and work location in particular because of a large suburbanization of workers outside the employment subcenters.