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ABSTRACT
This contribution deals with the spatial and social distribution of forest-fringe residents of the Rouen metropolis (France) and demonstrates how their forest-based leisure activities indicate and play a role in establishing their environment. A multi-scale approach contextualizes the study, explains the survey strategy used and shows how and to what degree these residents live between the city and forest. The sample is based on four very different residential forms reflecting different means of living in the city and reveal different ways of using nature, thus leading us to contemporary redefinitions of city–nature relations, which lie at the heart of the issues and mutations facing our urban condition.
RÉSUMÉ
Cette contribution porte sur la distribution spatiale et sociale de résidents de lisière de forêt à l’échelle de la métropole rouennaise (France), et montre comment leurs activités de loisir en forêt témoignent et participent de l’institution de leur cadre de vie. Une approche multiscalaire contextualise l’étude, explique la stratégie d’enquête mise en place et montre en quoi et comment ces résidents habitent entre ville et forêt. L’échantillon prend appui sur quatre formes résidentielles très différenciées, qui renvoient à des manières de s’inscrire dans la ville, et qui donnent à voir des usages de la nature différenciés. On accède ainsi aux redéfinitions contemporaines des relations ville-nature, qui sont au cœur des enjeux et des mutations de notre condition urbaine.
Acknowledgements
The investigators would like to thank the Office National Des Forêts and the environment service of Métropole Rouen Normandie that have kindly provided their statistical surveys.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. A thesis and several research programmes are ongoing on the subject of the territorial mediations proposed by nature.
2. In an article in the review The Forestry Chronicle, Erik Jorgensen defines urban forestry as ‘a specialized branch of forestry that has as its objective the cultivation and management of trees for their present and potential contributions to the physiological, sociological and economic well-being of urban society. These contributions include the over-all ameliorating effect of trees on their environment, as well as their general amenity value’ (Jorgensen, Citation1974).
3. Three forest areas were selected, representing practically one-third of the metropolis.
4. The first charter dates from 2004 to 2008, the second from 2010 to 2014, a third territorial charter is currently being applied for 2015–2020.
5. By city centre, we mean the centre of central city in the conurbation; in this case, the city centre of greater Rouen.
6. The body of the thesis integrates data and results from other surveys, some of which were commissioned by the metropolis (2002, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2014) and conducted by specialized institutes (TNS Sofres, IPSOS), using the quota method; in the interest of comparison, the standards of representation we use here refer to those specified in the report of the 2014 survey of usages and perceptions of forests by residents in the greater region of Rouen.
7. Thus, although those without diplomas represent 1 person out of 3 in the metropolis, there are only 1 out of 10 in the sample; conversely, those with ‘higher education diplomas’ (Bachelor level and higher) represent 1 in 5 on the forest fringe as opposed to 1 in 10 in the greater urban area.
8. The INSEE defines ZUS as ‘infra-urban zones defined by the public authorities as priority targets for the city policy, in function of local considerations linked to the difficulties experienced by residents in these zones’. They are characterized by ‘the presence of high-rise estates or run-down residential districts and an exaggerated imbalance between the dwelling and the use’.
9. ZFUs are districts of more than 10,000 residents located in zones said to be sensitive or underprivileged. They were defined using special criteria (unemployment levels, proportion of population leaving the educational system without diplomas, proportion of young people and fiscal potential per resident).
10. The level of poverty corresponds to the proportion of individuals (or households) whose standard of living is inferior for a given year to the threshold known as the poverty threshold (expressed in Euro). In Europe, we use a threshold of 60% of the median standard of living.
11. A method that admits a contingency table as input and produces as output an image of the distribution of values and variables.
12. A method of automatic classification used to distribute individuals into a certain number of classes.
13. Interview with a 66-year-old man, retired, living on the fringe of a badly equipped forest in a house with more than 100 m² of ground at Notre-Dame-de-Bondeville, 10 July 2014.
14. As defined by INSEE SOCs.