STUDYING THE CHANGING COMPETENCIES OF GREATER PARIS (TO THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF A.E. SLUKA)

Abstract

The article deals with the study of Greater Paris in the context of changing paradigm of the development of a large city under the transnationalization of world economy and the process of globalization. The contribution of A.E. Sluka, Professor of the Moscow University, Honorary Member of the Russian Geographical Society, who created a “dynamic” portrait of the French capital of the second half of the twentieth - early twenty-first centuries on the basis of the synthetic approaches and revealed the main features of its socio-economic geography, is evaluated. The article analyzes shifts in the functional structure of the metropolis during the transition to the “international city” model as a result of the implementation of the decentralization and dein-dustrialization policy. The scientist’s ideas on studying the competencies of the city as a corporate center and in the context of practices of the largest agglomerations of the world are being developed. GIS technologies are applied to describe the specific features of Greater Paris as a location of the country’s largest TNCs and the acceptor of branches of foreign companies. The multidisciplinary nature of large national business is revealed, which contributes to the development of interfirm cooperation and serves as an additional resource for the competitiveness of the city. The sectoral structure of foreign corporate segment of its economy is dominated by companies in the material sphere of production (mechanical engineering, chemical and food industries), while the geographical structure is dominated by the US TNCs. There is a consolidated placement of local and foreign companies mainly in three functionally different clusters (within the historical core, the Defense district and Paris-Saclay). Based on the materials of international statistics and ratings of cities, the modern place of Greater Paris among the “world capitals” is considered applying the comparative geographical method. Most ratings include it in the top-5 cities of the planet and characterize it as a multifunctional center of global importance, permanently expanding the scope of its competencies. Being inferior in absolute value of the main economic resources, innovative and environmental indicators, it is ahead of many largest agglomerations of the world in terms of the scope of economic and political influence, information exchange and cultural interaction, as well as the quality of life; it is well-known by specific creative industries. When analyzing the image of the French capital on the basis of sociological surveys, the stability of its “global attractiveness” is noted due to the resources of symbolic capital, which plays an increasingly important role in the information society.