Intrametropolitan Patterns of High-order Business Service Location: A Comparative Study of Seventeen Sectors in Ile-de-France

The location of high-order service sectors outside traditional CBDs can be taken as a sign of the CBD's decline and there is evidence that such a process is occurring. However, all evidence does not point this way. In this paper, we study the Paris region in order to explore the location patterns of 17 distinct high-order business service sectors. The location patterns of high-order business services are found to be complex, each sector behaving differently and each sector displaying combinations of concentration and dispersal. Hypotheses are put forward relating the various interlocking patterns to the markets (producer-consumer; local-global), to the internal structure (large-small establishments, local branches, back-offices, small consultancies) and to the nature (technical-non-technical) of each sector.