Much of the scholarship on the empowerment of suburbs (‘edge city’, ‘ex-urb’, and so on) focuses on American cases and draws upon social and economic variables to explain the phenomenon. In this paper I aim to broaden the empirical reach of the literature by examining the transformation of several municipalities from rural backwaters into powerful political and economic forces in Toulouse, France. I also aim to broaden existing theoretical approaches by closely examining the state's role in the empowerment of this particular patch of suburbs. In particular, I argue that changes in both local economic and state structures have presented officials across Toulouse, France with a broad range of opportunities. Actors with heightened strategic capacities, like those actors composing the suburbs under investigation, have been better able to acquire the wealth and power needed to become potent territorial forces.
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