La dynamique sociale des quartiers urbains

Abstract

Factorial ecologies have thought us a great deal about the basic architecture of urban social space, but rather little about its dynamics. This weakness partly depended on its incapacity to consider the complexities of the internal social structure of neighbour­hoods although, in a number of countries, censuses, which were the main data source for factorial ecologies, publish detailed categorizations of numerous characteristics of neighbourhoods’ residents. It is for instance possible to explore the social thickness of neighbourhoods by analyzing the linkages between such dimensions as social diversity, economic inequality, residential mobility and conflict activity. More specifically, an analysis suggests that residential mobility contributes to the reduction of the asymetry of income inside neighbourhoods, thus supporting the idea that individuals self-select in particular environments thereby homogenizing these. All in all, it appears that census data may help considerably to shed light on the social dynamics of urban neighbour­hoods and, fortunately, access to these data is improving in a number of countries.

Keywords

• diversity
• inequality
• conflict
• mobility
• neighbourhood effect