How to account for the complexity and plurality of neighborhood ties ? Beyond simple exchanges in front of mailboxes, it is particularly a question of understanding the unequal dynamics which structure local social relations.
The collective investigation at the origin of What neighbor meanspublished in 2025 and directed by Jean-Yves Authier and Joanie Cayouette-Remblière, analyzes the logics underlying neighborhood ties, but also what such ties say about the social integration of individuals. The work helps to correct a certain number of normative discourses – particularly media and political – which aim to regulate neighborhood ties by invoking the sometimes poorly understood notions of social diversity or spatial segregation.
All neighbors, but all neighbors differently
The authors point out that neighborhood ties have already been studied by the social sciences, often in the context of monographs. Although very informative, the latter nevertheless have a limited comparative scope, since they do not use the same methods, do not adopt the same scales of analysis and therefore do not generate the same types of data. Broader statistical studies of neighborhood ties have also been carried out. But, even if they reveal major trends, they struggle to reveal the specificities of neighborhood relations according to the types of spaces and populations studied, as well as their developments.
This new work proposes a mixed method of investigation, which fills in the previous gray areas. In 2018, its authors carried out a questionnaire survey – called “ My neighborhood, my neighbors » (MQMV) – for which they obtained 2752 responses. In 2019, they then conducted 210 interviews with people who had already responded to the questionnaire. Fourteen study sites were investigated, seven in Paris and seven in Lyon, referring to seven different types of cases in terms of “ social composition » and level of “ urbanization » : « bourgeois neighborhoods in the city center, (…) gentrified neighborhoods in the city center (…) working-class neighborhoods in the city center (…) neighborhoods with planned social diversity (…) large complexes undergoing urban renovation (…) small peri-urban towns (…) rural peri-urban communities » (p. 22).
This plurality of methods and cases allows us to establish several observations. The work first of all puts into perspective the idea according to which neighborhood relations are “ in crisis » in the sense that they would tend, on the one hand, to disintegrate or, on the other hand, to become the object of an inter-relationship which would lead, in working-class neighborhoods, to forms of “ ethnic communitarianism “. The survey results refute both of these claims. They also allow us to rethink what it means to be neighbors. The authors choose, in fact, not to present neighbors as an undifferentiated group, but to understand more precisely the modalities of constitution of links, the alliances, the conflicts, the reasons for neighboring, the variations according to the perimeter of the relations. Furthermore, it appears impossible to think about neighborhood relationships without placing them within a broader set of links, including friendly and elective relationships, in order to observe possible combinations between these different types, determining “ the pulse of neighborhood life » (p. 12). The evolution of links is also dependent on the social composition of each local space, which leads to examining the impact of the class variable on the construction and transformation of neighborhood relations.
Quality and density of links: a matter of social classes
The survey challenges a certain number of preconceived ideas. First of all, the authors show that homophily in terms of professions and socio-professional categories is lower than for other variables, such as those of “ housing occupancy status » or “ situation regarding children “. However, if we look at the socio-professional variable, not everyone neighbors – that is to say does not frequent their neighbors – as intensely. On this subject, the work reflects an apparent paradox: while the exchange of resources between neighbors is essential for the working classes, they are statistically those who neighbor the least. In fact, it is precisely because they are more dependent than other social classes on neighborhood resources that they must exercise caution in creating these links. They have fewer levers – whether residents’ associations or possibilities for institutional recourse – to resolve conflicts between neighbors. In addition, the difficulties in living next to each other are caused by the type of housing they occupy – less suitable for entertaining – and by their residential trajectories, over which they have less control.
Conversely, the middle and upper classes have an easier time integrating into their neighborhoods. The former are the most invested in neighborhood associations, which create sociability and offer them a form of centrality in local networks and institutions: “ Their associative activities place certain middle-class respondents in the position of spokesperson on issues related to local life, and then make them known and recognized figures in the local space.. » (p. 95). As for the upper classes, they also develop important neighborhood ties, marked by greater social and ethnic proximity. These relationships are sometimes organized around the management of the co-ownership, so that the owner-tenant opposition and the class dimension intersect here. More broadly, the upper classes also develop more relationships in the neighborhood around cultural activities (the local offer generally adapts to the tastes and interests of this type of population).
This observation relating to the differences in ways of neighboring according to social class leads the authors to extend their analysis by asking several additional questions: although the working classes neighbor less, do neighborhood ties allow them to compensate for their fewer individual resources? ? In other words, do they reduce inequalities or, on the contrary, reinforce them? ? Unfortunately, in view of the results of the survey, the last hypothesis is the correct one: we observe a strengthening of inequalities, the links functioning according to “ a logic of accumulation » (p. 250). The survey shows that an individual who develops numerous local links will also have numerous extra-local links.
Beyond class, other factors to consider
The survey also looks at other variables, such as gender, age and country of birth. If it is not possible here to look precisely at all of these variables, recalling the results on country of birth is important, particularly because, on this point as on the previous ones, they call into question commonplaces. The authors first show that there is greater mutuality in terms of neighborhood ties between people born in France than between people born abroad, which goes against the idea of “ ethnic communitarianism » in the neighborhoods. However, it is for the children of immigrants that it is most difficult to integrate, both into neighborhood ties but more broadly into society, due to the discrimination they experience (p. 265). Another variable whose importance it is interesting to underline is a geographical variable: that which the authors call the “ neighborhood effects » or “ local context “. They observe that the social composition of neighborhoods is not the only influence on ways of living together: the type of neighborhood in which we live also matters. They indeed show that developing ties with one’s neighbors depends on “ morphology of places, (of) the density of buildings and (of) the offer of services and equipment » (p. 138). From then on, the nature and intensity of the links will evolve depending on the type of neighborhood in which we settle, and this for different reasons specific to a space and the life of an individual: “ the location and history of places, the characteristics of residential trajectories (…), social relationships and locally constructed norms between residents and social groups present » (p. 160).
Neighborhood norms, norms of the dominant classes
All of these inequalities, particularly of class and country of birth (or country of birth of parents), have consequences in terms of urban standards, that is to say lifestyles encouraged in the neighborhood. This “ local social order » ranges from the degree of noise tolerance in a building to the type of business you want to see appear near your home, including many other aspects. However, as Jean-Claude Chamboredon and Madeleine Lemaire showed in 1970, a form of social and ethnic diversity in the neighborhood does not necessarily mean that different lifestyles can coexist. It is, in fact, often the middle and upper classes who, having more institutional and financial resources and investing more in the collective spaces of the neighborhood, have more opportunities to change the space in which they live.
Within the same building, the negotiation of neighborhood standards often revolves around aspects of daily life that may seem trivial: to what extent must we tolerate the noise from the children of the neighbors above ? Is it acceptable for a group of young people to discuss while sitting on the steps of the building? ? Do we want our neighbors to cross the threshold of our home? ? By delving deeper into the example of noise, the authors demonstrate that all these dimensions of collective life in fact depend on the representations that we project onto others, sometimes in a discriminatory manner: “ Behind the objective and factual response that is “ noise » as a source of conflict or embarrassment, hides, in a more subjective way, the perception that individuals have of others, of their different ways of living, but also of their ways of considering common life in a building » (p. 55).
The survey thus allows us to affirm that, although the diversity of individuals at the local level is often valued when residents are asked about their relationship with the neighborhood, this does not mean that it is well experienced and this does not prevent attempts at normative imposition on certain groups.
Overall, What neighbor means therefore constitutes a notable empirical contribution to the description of neighborhood relations in France and to their better understanding. The work calls into question a certain number of clichés – and in particular that of a supposed “ ethnic communitarianism » regularly taken up in public debate. Certainly, the conceptual apparatus used contains some inaccuracies: the authors at times confuse between oneself (here, the fact of being close to one’s peers) and homophily (that is to say the preference for oneself). However, this does not detract from the main qualities of the work and the investigation. MQMVwhich we hope will fuel discussions in the future on “ the neighborhoods “, whatever they may be.