Contrastes

Les réponses sont très intéressantes, car on voit que pour les français et les américains, la banlieue n'a pas du tout la même connotation :

• en France, les banlieues sont associées à des cités HLM, de la délinquance et de la pauvreté.
• aux Etats-Unis, on a l'impression qu'elles représentent la famille moyenne, dans un pavillon et sa pelouse entretenue. Un espace calme voire même ennuyeux (le cliché des Simpsons).

Question

Comment sont réparties les différentes classes sociales dans et autour des villes ? Y a-t-il des mélanges ? Y a-t-il une distinction nette entre la ville et la banlieue ?

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Olivier et Jonathan

I come from the suburbs of San Francisco.  There, at least, the city itself contains all social classes, though they are generally separated by neighborhood.  Around the city, there are some poorer areas that I guess could be called sub-urban but not suburban, in that they are satellites of the larger city, but don't follow what you call the Simpsons cliche.  Then there are the real suburbs, maybe an hour's drive outside the city, where middle class families move so their children can go to good schools with nice middle class children.  The people of the suburbs often commute to the city for work and cultural events.  Minivans, soccermoms, and streets of similar-looking houses are common.  There are a few apartment/condo complexes in town, but they have a bit of a stigma attached to them.  This probably doesn't apply across the country, but it is true where I live, especially pre-recession.  After the suburbs come rural areas, which I guess are mostly agricultural. After that comes the wilderness.  More or less.

If the Simpsons took place in France, where would it take place? 

Also, what is HLM?

Les logements HLM (habitation à loyer modérés) sont des immeubles créés dans un but social. Les familles les plus modestes peuvent ainsi bénéficier de ce type de logement pour ne pas finir dans la rue. Cependant, pour en bénéficier, il faut justifier d'une situation financière ne permettant pas l'accès à un autre logement. (si les souvenirs sont bons...)

L'image que les français ont de la banlieue est donc une zone en périphérie de la ville où les logements sociaux sont nombreux. Les gens qui habitent là bas sont donc "défavorisés", et il n'est pas rare qu'un climat tendu soit instauré (les jeunes sont souvent non scolarisés...).

Personnellement, je n'habite pas dans une grande ville (l'agglomération fait environ 20 000 habitants), mais la banlieue de ma ville est le lieu où les traficants de drogue habitent, et c'est là que la majorité des interventions policières ont lieu.

Quand aux Simpsons, je ne pense pas qu'ils habiteraient en banlieue si la série était française.

Je partage l'avis d'Olivier, car les différentes associations de mots sont assez révélatrices des différentes conceptions des banlieues.

Venant moi même de la banlieue Parisienne, je me dois cependant de contredire la plupart de mes camarades, en effet certaines banlieues sont très riches (notamment de nombreuses villes de l'ouest parisien en ce qui concerne la banlieue parisienne, mais dans n'importe quelle grande aglomération, pour Bordeaux il y a par exemple Le Bouscat).

C'est de par la forte concentration de personnes marginalisées par la société dans certains quartiers de quelques villes de banlieue que l'on a cette image.

Je trouve cependant la vision de nos correspondants américains très intéréssante quoique difficile à concevoir tellement nous sommes baignés dans notre culture.

It sounds like there is no real equivalent for the American image of "suburbs" in French culture, and I don't think it applies the other way around either. The idea of government-sponsored housing is very interesting, I wonder what effect introducing that idea into American society would have.

I grew up in Arkansas, in the southern US, and the closest thing there to socioeconomically marginalized neighborhoods was the "hood," and we were always told to not walk alone or stay out too late there.

How do neighborhoods function in French culture? Here they are often a coherent unit - people within a neighborhood recognize each other, and there are events that only involve the people in a certain neighborhood. Is there much interaction between neighbors in France?

I grew up in the suburbs, but my neighborhood doesn't fit this stereotype. We had a few drug raids in the area, and quite a few times, we would hear a gunshot from startlingly close.

I feel like the concept of suburban that we Americans possess, the whole concept of WASP (White Anglo-saxon Protestant) neighbors , a two-story house with blue or green shutters, an expansive front yard with two cars in the driveway, is a stereotype of American culture left over from the 1950s. After the Great Depression and World War II, there was a return to the idea of showing wealth off. Tailored suits, ostentatious cars, and a large house was the American dream at that point. In this environment, what better way to signal wealth than by moving out of the city? Not only do you prove you have the economic capacity to commute in and out of the city, but land is also much cheaper outside of the city, meaning one could own a larger house. My belief is the desire to live in the suburbs stems directly from that mass exodus from the city in the 1950s.

Just a thought, but exactly the same influence could be at play in France. The only difference would be that the major French cities were already quite developed by the time the average Frenchman had any sort of wealth (following the fall of the monarchy, etc.). Thus, the best way, in this case, to illustrate wealth, would be to afford living quarters within the city, rather than around it. 

Granted, that is just a thought. I have neither proof nor a strong conviction. Would anyone with more knowledge on the subject care to correct or support me?

Interestlingly, I have studied a little bit about the development of the American suburbs. The concept of suburbs started in the early 1940s. Seeing that the war was about to end and that was a high demand for housing from young couples plus an influx of veterans to the US, the tract housing model was created to supply this much needed demand. At the time, the only houses available were stone ones that took many years to be built, were very expensive and passed down from one generation to the next. Once the tract housing system was mastered, lower middle class to higher middle class citizens were able to purchase homes that looked te same and were dirty cheap. Therefore, suburbus were designed for young families in the first place, and they continue to be so until today. 

Anne ye, there is government subsidized housing in the U.S.. They are known as projects, and recently the government has been offering them in large cities with the purpose to blend in families with different economic standing. 

@Anne : je ne pense pas que les français soient très "voisins". En fait, par rapport à mon expérience, mes parents vivent dans un immeuble, et nous ne connaissons que deux de nos voisins... En revanche, du côté de mes grands parents, tout le quartier se connait. Ils ont construit leur maison dans les années 50, comme les autres habitants du quartier, et n'ont jamais déménagé. En fait, seule une maison a changé de propriétaire depuis l'installation de mes grands parents. Cela facilite la connaissance entre les gens, mais ils n'ont (à ma connaissance) jamais organisé d'évènement de quartier...

En France il semblait logique que les habitations les plus demandées soient celles dans le centre des grandes villes, proches des commerces et des institutions. On y trouve les bâtiments culturels (et musées).

Je pense que les villes américaines se sont développées très vite autour d'un centre d'affaires, ce qui explique que les habitations en centre ville soient associées à des petits appartements, alors que les prix desgrands appartements du centre parisien atteignent des sommets.

I also live in a suburb, but my suburb is outside of a relatively small city. I do know of some living communitites where people of similar statuses live. For example people of lower socioeconomic groups tend to stay together and people of higher socioeconomic groups tend not to go near people of lower incomes. This is mostly because of what they want their children to be around. So we do have suburbs and things like your "Banlieue" but they are not really the same thing.

One can definitely draw visible partitions for regions of social classes around where I'm from (Central Massachusetts, ~1 hour from Boston), as I'm sure you can in most other places.  As you drive through Massachusetts, there will be regions/cluster of towns ranging from mostly white middle class, to more urban towns mixed with many ethnicities.

For example, I come from a rural/suburban town that is >95% white, which is next to an urban town (not quite a city) that consists mostly of hispanics and african americans.  Going from one town to the next is a noticable change.

I think Guillaume's comment was interesting, about how in France, the most desirable places to live are the closest to the middle of the city. In the US, I feel like we have the opposite trend. Certainly, many single, highly mobile college students are drawn to cities like Boston, where there are lots of things to do and see, but I feel like people who have families want to move out of the city into suburbs, which have a reputation for being boring, but safe and peaceful.

In contrast, the downtown areas of cities are associated with crime, homelessness, etc. Urbanization, where the city gradually spreads outward and encompasses the surrounding suburbs, is seen as a problem in American cities. Is there a similar phenomenon in France, and if so, how do people feel about the spread of cities?

En France, c'est un peu le contraire, l'insécurité et la pauvreté sont associées aux banlieues, alors que le centre ville est considéré comme plus sûr. Quand une ville grandit, une zone qui était autrefois une banlieue se trouve plus proche du centre ville, des commerces ... etc, donc le prix de l'immobilier monte, poussant les plus pauvres à trouver un logement encore plus en périphérie. Du coup, le niveau de vie du quartier augmente, ce qui est en général suivi d'une baisse de la délinquence.