L’installation périurbaine entre risque de captivité et opportunités d’autonomisation

Previous research done in the context of a PhD dissertation showed how gaining access to property in outer suburban areas can prove to be disappointing, even painful, to lower-middle-class families living on one income. The study highlighted a major gap between the aspirations of the middle class and the reality witnessed on the ground, a gap that often brought about a feeling of being stalled in life. The study is reexamined in this paper through an analysis of three suburban housing sectors. This contribution thus highlights growingly complex lifestyles tantamount to a recomposition of suburban societies. The influence of life experience and individual logics is shown through the limits and potentialities of the suburban experience as well as the integrative strength of suburban housing. Relations do emerge, however, in that as in previous surveys those with a low income also face more problems when settling in suburban areas. More generally, this reanalysis allows questioning anew both the evolution of suburban spaces – most notably those that, at some point, face stigma, precariousness and depreciation – and the role played by such spaces in reshaping metropolitan areas, particularly in terms of city-suburb relations.