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Transportation and urban planning : with the example of the « metro » railways in large french provincial towns Marseilles has had a « metro » since November 1977 and Lyons since April 1978. These are two classical « métros » on tyres, set up to attract people to collective transportation by offering them an excellent means of getting at the heart of towns. The preliminary studies and administratives approaches took ten years and the construction itself only five years. In Lille, the first metro line will open in 1983 ; Lille has choses a light automatic metro, which diminishes the costs of building and running. By the end of 1978, 140 000 people used everyday the metro in Lyons and 100 000 in Marseilles. The metro has already had an influence on urban planning : thus in Lyons new pedestrian precincts were built thanks to it. In Marseilles and Lyons, real estate operations are closely linked to the metro. However, one may wonder whether the metro has been the main factor in these operations or just accelerated an inevitable movement.

It can be useful to examine what will be the indirect effects of the starting (in 1981) of the high speed train between Paris and Lyon. After an analysis of the urban hierarchy at the present time, we try to spot the transformations the new train can bring about this hierarchy.

As the large barge connection between Lyon and Port-Saint-Louis is reaching completion, the fleet has been renovated and the traffic is appreciably increasing. However, the development prospects remain weak for many reasons : lack of easy connection with Fos/mer, imprécisions about carrying out the Rhône-Rhin connection, quantitative shortage of regional manpower and new investors missing. Without any change, many transport infrastructures put the manufacturers of the valley in a good situation for their supplies.

In the past the Norwegian shipyards have known difficult moments they have always overcome ; the period of prosperity linked to the prospecting and the exploitation of hydrocarbons in the North Sea was followed by a slackening in the building of new boats. Since the second world war the range of productions has been broadened while the concentration of the yards and the modernization of the manufacturing process improved the productivity and favoured technical progress. The present crisis of outlet and the difficulties with the labour were at the origin of the financial problems raging in most firms and that the government-subsidies try to solve.