The relevance of psychosocial maps in the study of urban districts

This pilot study proposes a social map-making method based on the link between the evaluation of the neighbourhoods and the populations residing in them. It was carried on a sample of residents of Dijon’s urban area, a French city (N = 99) divided into four groups, according to the geographical location (in the city / in the suburbs) and the social status (wealthy / disadvantaged) of their living space. The procedure is inspired by social representation gathering methods. Respondents were asked (1) to evaluate their own neighbourhood and others on two scales (social reputation and personal appreciation); (2) to evaluate populations on two similar scales; (3) to determine how these populations are spared in the different neighbourhoods. The central hypothesis of this study was that evaluations of a sector would be linked to the populations living there in the representation of the individuals. Results showed that the correlation between the evaluation of a sector and the perceived proportion of French in this sector with a good reputation is strong and positive. The method has also showed patterns of repartition in the representations of the inhabitants: while certain populations are concentrated in precise sectors, others are scattered across the territory.