Bien que la région soit un concept multiforme, voire omniforme, le découpage régional est le cadre privilégié de la pensée spatiale et de l’action territoriale. Or la moitié des être humains du monde, et plus des trois quarts des européens, habitent dans une ville. Les villes produisent plus que proportionnellement à leur poids démographique, et concentrent les activités économiques de haut niveau, particulièrement la production de haute technologie, les sièges sociaux, la finance et les services aux entreprises. Dans l’économie globalisée, les performances régionales semblent être soumises à celles des villes, et les interactions économiques régionales, nationales et mondiales sont principalement le fait des villes. Ce papier examine le décalage entre d’une part la prégnance du concept de région et du découpage régional et d’autre part le rôle dominant des villes dans l’économie. Le biais régional a des sources profondes et durables, théoriques comme empiriques. Mais même si la région cache la ville, elle reste un cadre territorial incontournable. / Though the region is a multiform or even omniform concept, the concrete region is the privileged framework of spatial thought and action. Now half of the human beings in the world, and more than three quarters of Europeans live in cities. Cities produce more than proportionally to their population and concentrate high-order economic activities, especially high technology production, headquarters, finance and producer services. In the global economy, regional performances appear to be depending on city performances, and most regional, national and world economic interactions are urban interactions. This paper examines the gap between on the one hand the prominence of the concept of region and of the regional division of space, and on the other hand the dominant economic role of cities. The regional bias is deeply and durably rooted, theoretically as well as empirically. Even though the region hides the city, it remains an inescapable spatial scale.
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Paper provided by LEG, Laboratoire d'Economie et de Gestion, CNRS UMR 5118, Université de Bourgogne in its series LEG - Document de travail - Economie with number
2008-03.
Length: 18 pages Date of creation: Mar 2008 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:lat:legeco:2008-03
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