Escaping Car Dependence in the Outer Suburbs of Paris

The outer suburbs of Paris are home to a large number of low-income households driven from the centre by the workings of the property market. This shift could give rise to a new form of socio-spatial segregation insofar as the elevated costs of mobility in such highly car-dependent areas restrict and change these households ’ mobility patterns. These effects were observed in data on three groups of working people from the 2001 global transport survey. However, the socio-spatial impact of this outward movement is significantly reduced by the residential mobility of low-income households, which move from the most car-dependent areas to denser areas with better public transport provision. The presence of social housing in these areas only partially explains these migrations. These results obtained from 1999 census micro-data cast doubt upon the emergence of a new form of segregation in the outer suburbs described by Dodson and Sipe. of transport are less numerous. In these areas, the car has a radical monopoly in the sense proposed by Illich (1974)—it detracts from other means of transport, specifically by offer-ing greater speed of travel and a high degree of flexibility. Urban outskirts are dependent on the car; this is the logical outcome of a period in which the trend was essentially to promote car use (Giuliano and Narayan, 2003)