ABSTRACT
Population figures alone provide an inadequate measure of the extent to which Paris had come to dominate the political, economic and cultural life of the country. The absence of an administrative hierarchy between the national capital and. the prefecture had the effect of concentrating decision-making in Paris. Though far behind Paris, Lyon holds an unchallenged position as second business and commercial centre of France. It was organisation d'etudes d'amenagement des aires metropolitaines's (OREAM's) responsibility to plan for the wider urban region and in 1970 a schea d'amenagement was approved which recognized the tendency for Lyon to grow. Marseille and Lyon evoke very different images in the mind of the average Frenchman. Marseille's wealth was founded on the colonial trade and the loss of France's colonial empire over the last 30 years has brought difficult problems of adjustment of both an economic and a social kind.
