The Location of Multinational Firms in the European Urban System

Abstract

The progress of political and economic integration among European countries is inducing the progressive emergence of a European urban system. National urban systems are restructuring and adapting themselves to this new international and economic context. The location of the largest multinational firms is taken as revealing a major step in the process of the integration of European cities into supra-national networks. A survey of the location of 3000 establishments belonging to the 300 largest European firms provides interesting results about the factors making European cities attractive for such activities. It may be inferred from these results that they confirm a new trend called `metropolisation', which is reinforcing the top of the national urban hierarchies, as demonstrated in other studies.