Services and high skills: a new challenge for developing medium-sized cities

Medium-sized cities are often considered as a valuable substitute to a large metropolis as they may promote better sustainable growth. However, these second rank conurbations do not benefit from economies of scale as do larger cities. They share some characteristics with a big metropolis, notably their spatial spreading on surroundings areas, but are not able to attract high-order service functions. The research reported here is supported by a statistical analysis of censuses from 1982 to 1999. It highlights the service-location patterns of medium-sized cities compared with metropolises, proposes a typology of medium-sized cities based on their economic structure and tries to explain through regression analysis the growth sources of their economy.