The main characteristics of urban socio-ecological trajectories: Paris (France) from the 18th to the 20th century

- The article analyses the urban socio-ecological trajectory of Paris, from the 18th to the 20th century.
- The Industrial Revolution and urbanisation have led to three main metabolic changes.
- The intensification, externalisation and deepening of the imprints of urban metabolism
- The growing infrastructural dimension of urban metabolism
- The urbanisation of landscape and the creation of urban extraterritorialities

For some years now, interactions between societies and the biosphere have been the subject of socio-ecological studies (SESs), which analyse socio-ecological regimes, trajectories and transitions. This article follows the approach, and seeks to contribute to the analysis of socio-ecological urban trajectories since the Industrial Revolution. It draws on some key notions which are tested and applied to Paris. The urban socio-ecological regime of the industrial era has three major characteristics: i) the near-total externalisation of a more intensive urban metabolism, associated with the breakup of supply areas and the deepening, urban footprint on the environment; ii) the importance of infrastructure to this metabolism, which fits into a process of generalised networking led by engineers and leads to urban technical inter-dependencies; and iii) the urbanisation of landscapes associated with the proliferation of extra-territorial urban influences, despite the loss of certain skills available to the French capital.