We do not sufficiently appreciate the value of a park in front of a school. The children go out without their parents fearing to see them crossing the road, who linger, without being stuck against a barrier. On days without rain, in front of the Stéphane-Hessel school group, in Montreuil, in Seine-Saint-Denis, mothers converse under the plane trees, a newborn in their arms, an eye on the eldest, a little further away. Numbers are exchanged. The next strike, shall we share the day?
The way in which a place, a neighborhood is organized has a real influence on the links that are formed between residents. These relationships constitute a resource, a “social capital”, which can be activated in case of need or crisis. Researchers, who worked on the 1995 heatwave in Chicago, the Fukushima accident or Covid-19 in Montreal, showed that“When disaster strikes, people fare better when they have the right connections and social networks”. This postulate – social ties as a factor of resilience –, APUR, the Parisian Urban Planning Workshop, sought to understand the nature and intensity of social relations in Greater Paris.
How many relatives do the inhabitants of the metropolis have? Which circles do they belong to? Are there differences depending on the nature of the urban fabric and age? Can we encourage these links, without imposing them? The answers to these questions, developed from 2,500 questionnaires and a series of interviews, challenge a certain number of preconceived ideas and were presented on Thursday, May 16, during a conference at the Maison de l’architecture , in Paris.
Share capital
First lesson: we are not alone in Greater Paris. “The residents have a relatively developed social network, even if there are situations of vulnerability”, explains demographer Emilie Moreau, director of the study. Eighty-nine percent of respondents named at least five loved ones they could ask for help. A quarter of them (23%) still believe that they feel alone or very often alone. Young people (18-25 years old), even if they have more relatives, suffer more from loneliness than their elders. “This age corresponds to a moment of rupture”, explains the researcher: we find ourselves far from our family, our friends.
Second lesson: the working classes are not those who live closest together. The study confirms what other work has shown: the poorest have weaker social capital. “One in five unskilled workers has no relationship in their living space, this drops to 1 or 2% among executives”, explains Joanie Cayouette-Remblière, researcher at the National Institute of Demographic Studies and co-author of the “My neighborhood, my neighbors” survey, in 2018. “When you have irregular hours, when you have two jobs, you are less likely to meet others at the same time, in the same place”, adds sociologist Maxime Felder, speaker at the conference, as a specialist in relations in urban areas. Furthermore, going out and maintaining your network is expensive. We bring back holiday gifts, we receive them. “The youngest people are giving up going out for economic reasons”, completes Emilie Moreau.
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