EFFECTS OF GLOBALIZATION ON THE SPATIAL STRUCTURE AND PROPERTY MARKETS IN THE PARIS REGION

The impressive development of techniques compressing time and (almost) abolishing distance, which support economic globalisation, at first gave rise to expectations that the economy would become independent of concrete territories, and that large cities would be less important. In fact, it is the contrary that has happened. Far from being dissolved into the non-spatial world of teleworking, global cities concentrate a growing share of wealth and power. In 1990, the Tokyo metropolitan area ranked in the first world position in terms of production, with a GDP of 854,4 billion dollars, amounting to the GDP of the total United Kingdom. Paris ranked in the 5th position, just after Los Angeles and Osaka, with a GDP of 318,1 billion equivalent to that of China. Researchers have tried to explain the intensification of the metropolisation process (strengthening of the leading activities of large cities) under economic globalisation. The most well-known theory is that of the "global city " by Saskia Sassen (Sassen, 1990). We will not discuss here whether Paris fits in with the model of global city according to Sassen's parameters. It can be assumed that Paris is not a global city because its financial sector (th