> Before reading this book I always thought Germany (where I grew up) was the exception for being more decentralized. But it looks like actually France is way more centralized even compared to other pretty centralized countries.
This is closely related to the concept of primate cities (you can read its wikipedia page for more details if interested). Essentially, places like France, UK, Russia (countries with primate cities) have an unusually/disproportionately high concentration of population in the largest city. There are some pros but unsurprisingly cons as well.
