in the concept of an urban community was created to address coordination problems associated with large metropolitan areas an urban community communaute urbairi is a highly integrated form of cooperation for which a dozen different responsibilities are transferred from the individual constituent communes four urban communities were created by the national government without consultation for the large metropolitan areas of bordeaux lille strasbourg and marseille more commonly however intercommunality in france has been historically characterised by a voluntary linking of communes to accomplish a specific set of mutually agreed functions