Peripheral Cities

Patrick Jarry

The Forum on Peripherical Cities Presidency is the City of Nanterre 
Chair: Patrick Jarry, Mayor of Nanterre, France
Contact: Djamel Sandid, Relations et Coopérations avec le monde. Nanterre, France.

Peripheral cities have common characteristics

The cities in the periphery are complex, varied and changing realities. Although situations across the world vary, these peripheral cities share common characteristics. They are at the core of basic questions such as relations between the centre and the periphery for the governance of metropolitan areas, infrastructure, living environment, the spatial dimension of activities, regional planning, social and territorial segregation, social integration, the relationships between urgent immediate needs and long-term projections of space, democracy and the role of the citizen.

Peripheral cities exchanging experiences and practices

The UCLG Forum on Peripheral Cities, chaired by Jaime Zea Usca, Mayor of Villa El Salvador, Peru, aims to facilitate the exchange of experience and practices, and develop a common approach by peripheral cities. In March 2006, a Forum of Peripheral Cities took place where members looked at three main themes: Democratic governance of metropolises, a metropolis for all and the sustainable metropolis.

Rethinking the notion of centrality

The Forum brings together the members of the worldwide network ’Cities in the periphery & participatory democracy’. It shows the need for recognition of the social and political situations of peripheral cities within their conurbations and within the world of cities. This does not mean opposition to the ’capital city’, but rather that it is necessary to question and rethink the notion of ’centrality’ in these urban zones.