Why are French cities tend to be small? (France)

[Marmel]

Originally Posted by forgotten username

I believe it's a cultural thing. People in France are very attached to their "commune", and therefore often see a consolidation as a loss of something they have. I think that might be a heritage of the French revolution and the system of communes, which was the symbol of the republic / state / everywhere.

There were consolidations in the past though, Lyon, Paris and I believe other major cities made some of them in the 19th century.

Now it's more important to create urban zones or whatever it's called, like "Grand Lyon" or the like. In the end the fact that there are 60 municipalities inside does not matter that much.

Well I see the point.
You know here in Belarus (as well as in all ex Soviet countries as far as I can judge the situation is different - administrative boundaries of the cities more or less coincide with actual boundaries. And that's logical - like, if it looks and feels like one city, why can't it be one city officially?
That's why the situation e.g. with Paris seems a bit strange - it's de facto a huge city but officially has a size of just 105 square km...and everything outside the Peripherique is technically not Paris.

[forgotten username]

Well, it feels huge because at this point there are often no physical boundaries between many of the municipalities, so it almost feels like one big city, only the inner city - the actual Paris - is separated, but everything else consists of many municipalities, even several "départements".

I wonder how that is in London or Moscow, which have a similar population in terms of city + suburbs

[nei]

In the US, annexation of surrounding communities was often prevented because of economic and demographic differences between them and the city municipality.

[Marmel]

Originally Posted by forgotten username

Well, it feels huge because at this point there are often no physical boundaries between many of the municipalities, so it almost feels like one big city, only the inner city - the actual Paris - is separated, but everything else consists of many municipalities, even several "départements".

I wonder how that is in London or Moscow, which have a similar population in terms of city + suburbs

The city of Moscow is much bigger in size than the actual city of Paris. Until recently, it had a territory of about 1000 sq km, and official city boundaries more or less coincided with the encompassing ring road called MKAD. Inside MKAD, the territory is built up very densely, while outside if feels quite different -- there are many suburbs which are developing rapidly but they don't feel like one big city, so there are also many forests, farmlands etc.
And a couple of years ago the territory of Moscow was expanded well beyond MKAD, and all in one direction - South-Western. Now it comprises about 2500 sq km and borders Kaluga Region (which is outside Moscow Region). This expansion was quite weird and controversial I think, but probably they have their reason as they want to decentralize Moscow...
As for London, for what I know, they have a concept of Greater London which is also quite big in size.

[nei]

To merge or annex municipalities in France, do the residents of each municipality have to vote yes? How much legal independence do they have?

[Minato ku]

I think the problem is more political.
Less municipalities means less elected officials. Those small officials have the power in France, they are thé majority of the deputy and they will use any mean necessary to protect their powers.

[french user]

Originally Posted by nei

To merge or annex municipalities in France, do the residents of each municipality have to vote yes? How much legal independence do they have?

France is divided into 36000 independant communes since the revolution. Those communes date back to ancient religious parish. Since a few decades the tendence is not to merge communes but to associate them into "communautés de communes" (when they are rural) or "Communautés d'agglomération" for bigger urban entities or "Communautés urbaines" for the biggest ones. Those associations of communes are difficult to create because they need the commune to join them freely. The state had to create incitations to "force" communes to group together. In the case of the greater Paris it this process is led by the state, so the incitations are stronger.

[nikolas7]

Paris as an administrative city has a popluation of only 2.26 million people. However, its ubran population is nearly 11 million.
If you were in Paris it would be huge, but the chances are you would be outside the city borders. I think this has somethign to do with history. I'm not 100% sure but I think the administrative borders of French cities have nor changed since the Revolution. As a result the french cities have small areas and tend to have the majority of it's inhabitants outside the city borders.
Curiously China does the opposite. It expands city borders to cover up all the urbanised area and even some wasteland.
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population[/url]
I don't know for what purpose though.
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_urban_areas_by_population[/url]

[botticelli]

Staring in 2016, France will reduce its regions from 22 to 13 (continental only). Cities like Lyon and Toulouse will become the capitals of a much larger region. Will this make those mid sized cities bigger and economically stronger?

[improb]

Originally Posted by botticelli

I notice French cities tend to be rather small land-wise. For example, its largest cities all have relatively smaller area than in other countries.

(in sq km)
Paris: 105
Lyon: 48
Marseille: 240 (unusually large for French standard)
Toulouse: 118
Nice: 72
Nante: 65
Bordeaux: 49

In compared with

Rome 1285
Madrid: 606
Milan: 181
Berlin: 892
Munich: 310
Vienna: 395

N American cities are absolutely huge:
NYC 789
Los Angeles 1214
Chicago 606
Houston 1625
Toronto 630
Montreal 365

I know the administrative area of cities don't mean much however, I wonder why is that French cities are being defined on such small areas, which on surface make it appear that France don't have many big cities if you look like city population, as if outside Paris, France only has small towns, but when you are really walking in cities like Nice or Lyon, they don't feel small at all, far larger than American cities with bigger population on paper.

Rome isn't the best example, Mussolini wanted to make the capital also the largest municipality and annexed a lot of nearby municipalities, many of which were completely rural. The municipality of Rome really extends as far as the lake of Bracciano which is 40 km away and full countryside and doesn't include many suburbs to the south and east which are part of the metropolitan areas.