Residents' Perceptions of their Neighbourhood: Disentangling Dissatisfaction, a French Survey

Abstract

To avoid the conventional and normative pitfalls of neighbourhood satisfaction scales, the responses to a non-inductive open question identified six statistical types of resident in France. The reasons for their satisfaction or dissatisfaction reflect both personal inclinations and characteristics of the neighbourhood. By controlling for these characteristics, for the local network of relationships, for the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and the social type of the neighbourhood, poor neighbourhoods stand apart in all six types of resident. The few reasons for contentment stem mainly from relationships with relatives and friends in the neighbourhood. The introduction of a socio-residential variable to categorise the neighbourhood socially clarifies residents' perceptions in terms of their social grade.