The population make-up of residential areas: Structure and changes (Douai, France)

Abstract

In a given social environment, what is theimpact of housing status, of the socialperception and identification of residentialareas on its actual population make-up? Underwhat conditions do these perceptions change?These questions have led us to determine foursynthetic variables of residential space:the socio-residential status of housingtypes (symbolic links between thecharacteristics of the housing unit and theposition of its occupant in society); the ``housing zones'' (impact of the composition ofthe housing stock on the social markersdefining a residential area); the residential areas (actual ``social marker'');and the local impact (social markers thatare not directly linked to the nature of thehousing stock).This article describes the methods and modelsused to construct these variables. They areused to understand the links betweenresidential movements and changes in thepopulation make-up in the area of Douai (inNorthern France), located in a formercoal-mining field which was gradually closed,beginning in the 1970s. We used secondaryprocessing of the 1990 partial census surveysof one-quarter of the French population, and wecarried out 1,344 surveys with households whichhad moved in 1994.Results show that mobility is often linked to``crisis'' situations: these are moves which donot aim to improve one's socio-residentialstatus. In the end, most households remainwithin the same housing category, in the sameresidential area, and in the same housingzone.