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Running has been developing rapidly in France for several decades, and this practice is accompanied by an increase in the number of sporting events in many areas. However, the geographical logics behind the spatial diffusion of the phenomenon have never been analyzed. This article therefore begins by reviewing the reasons for the development of this phenomenon, before presenting the method used to build the first geographic database of running events in France, which then allows us to draw the characteristic features of this geography on the scale of the French territory. A multiple linear regression shows that the most rural departments tend to have a higher density of running, particularly those located in the southern half of the hexagon, which is also more mountainous, and thus not unrelated to the much more pronounced growth of nature trails than road races. Finally, if this regression model only explains a little more than half of the variance, it is perhaps because the ubiquity of the running phenomenon is such that it results in a very wide spatial coverage, albeit unequal in terms of density, so much so that running has become an event of territorial animation, including in many small towns.

Within the field of urban studies, quantitative research on the assessment of social and urban segregation mainly focuses on the Paris case. Research is also characterised by little historical depth, due in particular to the methodological difficulties corresponding to such an approach. This paper presents a diachronic analysis of the social segregation of the Nantes metropolitan area over forty years (1975-2015). It adopts a quantitative approach combining tools and processes that are often addressed separately. The first part of the paper uses segregation and dissimilarity indexes to measure the evolution of segregation between social groups; it demonstrates the decline in these indexes since the 1970s. The second part uses a combination of multivariate statistical methods (Principal component analysis, Hierarchical classification analysis, Sequence analysis) in order to provide a spatial typology of the successive patterns of urban segregation. These analyses bring evidence of the gentrification dynamics, which concern some central areas in the Nantes metropolitan area. Besides, they highlight the social mix configurations that prevail in most neighbourhoods and municipalities of the metropolitan area. While the urban spatial fragmentations are often mentioned without being empirically grounded, this paper brings a series of quantitative evidences concerning current crucial French political issues and debates.

The progressive evolution of the meaning of residential enclosure in a country such as France is the central assumption of our research: it’s no more a representation of a strong property ownership but a strengthening movement of private appropriation of the residential (new condominiums or single housing master plan community) collective spaces. What methodology and data are likely to display this ? To understand this phenomenon, this paper will show a study based on the analysis of the representation of residential enclosure in the selling of new real estate programmes. Two ways will be explored. First of all, we have made an inventory of all the residential programmes in the first six-month period of 2002. In second time, we have made a semantic analysis of real estate selling brochures ; this last approach will be applied to discussions conducted with ten real estate developers who have intentionally integrated residential enclosure at different levels in their programmes.

In France, the identification - in promoters’ web-sites - of the real estate programs currently on the market which can be considered as gated and (associated) with control of the access draws a geography marked by ubiquity and territorial discrimination (with a higher concentration in the south of France). The security logics take part of the selling arguments legitimating the multiplication of fencing and protection devices in residential areas across France. This security evidence in the property developers’ arguments symbolizes the rise of a security order that prints a growing brand in territorial management, residential or not.

Depuis les années 2000 en France, un nouveau type d’environnement résidentiel sécurisé (et souvent fermé mais pas de façon systématique) se développe, incarné par les multiples figures du village senior. Ce phénomène soulève l’hypothèse d’une transposition d’un modèle d’entre-soi générationnel des États-Unis, où, dès les années 1950, des retirement communities ou active adults communities sont apparues, qui ont depuis proliféré vers la France. Il pose aussi la question de la construction d’un entre-soi et de sa confrontation à la mixité mais aussi à l’altérité. C’est cette interrogation qui sous-tend cet article. Celui-ci observe les modes d’habiter dans une résidence construite à l’origine exclusivement pour les seniors mais ouverte depuis à des ménages plus jeunes pour combattre la vacance d’une partie des logements. Il s’agit de la Villa Vermeil de Biscarrosse (Landes), complexe résidentiel fermé avec contrôle des accès, composé d’une résidence locative de 108 maisons gérée par le groupe Omnium Finance. Des entretiens longs et semi-directifs ont été conduits en 2008 auprès de résidants de cet ensemble d’habitat et du gestionnaire du club Villa Vermeil. Cette méthode permet de faire émerger les discours d’existence, donnant accès aux images et aux représentations des habitants dans la construction de leur rapport à l’habiter. L’intérêt de cette approche monographique est de bien illustrer la façon dont peut se construire ou non l’entre-soi générationnel et le rapport aux autres classes d’âge, dans un contexte où la mixité intergénérationnelle, étrangère à la conception du projet, a été imposée « après coup », ce qui n’est pas toujours bien perçu par les seniors, loin s’en faut, certains vivant cette mixité imposée comme une trahison et en décalage avec ce qu’ils étaient venus chercher en s’installant dans ce lieu. Since the years 2000 in France, a new type of protected residential environment (often fenced, but not always) develops, embodied by the multiple facets of the “retirement community.” This phenomenon raises the hypothesis of the transposition of a model of generation communities (retirement communities or active adults communities) from the Usa , where this type of communities appeared in the 1950s, and has since proliferated towards France. It begs also the question of community building confronted with diversity and otherness. This question underlies this paper, which observes the residential ways of living in a retirement community that has been opened to younger households in order to mitigate the effects of partial vacancy. The focus is the Villa Vermeil of Biscarrosse (Landes, France), a set of 108 rental houses managed by the Omnium Finance group. In-depth interviews were carried out with the inhabitants and the local administrator of this fenced and protected residence. The dwellers’ discourses on their state of living emerge clearly through this method, giving access to their representation and use of the residential space. This monographic approach illustrates how different generations may or may not find their way to cohabitate in the context of an intergenerational mix that was imposed “after the fact.” Some senior people perceive and resent this diversity as treason and in disharmony with what they were seeking in the first place when moving there.

This article studies the geographic spread of cohousing in the United States. As no exhaustive census of intentional communities has yet to be completed, we will discuss the principles underlying the constitution of an original database and then analyze the spatial diffusion of the phenomenon. This statistically marginal habitat has mostly developed in three areas: The West Coast, the Northeast, Colorado and New Mexico. This geography seems to correlate with territories that generally voted for the Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential election.