En quête d'habitat : choix résidentiels et différenciation des modes de vie familiaux en Suisse

This doctoral thesis is based on the observation that the individualization of society that is taking place today has led to new differentiations within the domains of lifestyle and residential choice. Our main hypothesis was that lifestyle influences residential choice. What kinds of differentiation with regard to lifestyles are we seeing currently? What connections are there between lifestyles, residential preferences and localization? Theoretically, the typical methods for describing residential choice and environment rely on epistemological, methodological and empirical corpuses that are quite varied and, at times, contradictory. On one hand do we find economic and demographical approaches based on the theory of the "rational" actor who attempts to optimize his localization according to "functional and economic" parameters (i.e. proximity to the workplace, the price and size of the residence depending on income and background); on the other we find sociological and anthropological approaches based on theories of social action where choice as a general rule is "socially" determined based on the individual's family ties, tradition, culture, way of living or even social position (Authier & al., 2010). Above and beyond such rational or social perspectives, other factors also influence the choices we make, including the sensitive dimension related to an individual's physical and emotional experience of space. In order to grasp all three logics of action in a single analytical frame we based our analysis on the postulate that residential choice is "plural." Thus do multiple criteria – accessibility, social rooting of families, social status of the residential residence, appreciation of the morphological qualities of the environment, etc. – figure into the decision. We assumed that based on their lifestyles that households blended one or the other of these logics of action, thus resulting in their ranking their criteria for choice in different ways. We proposed a conceptualization of lifestyle that offers a compromise between classical structuralist perspectives (Bourdieu, 1979) and individualist perspectives (Beck, 1983). In our opinion residential choices are influenced by a three-fold dimension of lifestyle: urban practices and daily life (stylization), values and urban representations (evaluation) and resources/constraints (stratification variables). Thus did we couple classic vertical forms (training, income, gender, etc.) with new horizontal forms (attitudes, opinions, values, practices, etc.) that engender social inequalities. Residential choice therefore results in a compromise (resulting from lifestyle) between the different functional, social and sensitive criteria that are or are not present in the structural, socio-historical, environmental context (potential receptiveness). Methodology The cities of Bern and Lausanne in Switzerland – two cities of comparable size but whose socio-historical backgrounds and urban structures vary significa