Peri-urban practices

This chapter focuses on relationships between neighbours in peri-urban areas, the perimeters of their daily lives and their relationships with the metropolitan territory. Inhabitants of peri-urban zones are above all inhabitants of the metropolis. Their daily lives take place in the metropolitan area as a whole, not just in their residential neighbourhoods, and their activities take them both to the city centre and neighbouring municipalities, which explains peri-urban dwellers’ lack of attachment to their place of residence and rather distant social relationships with neighbours. The extent of this perimeter means people are very dependent on cars, but this dependency seems to lessen as infrastructures are developed in peripheral areas. The new conditions contrast sharply with initial development phases, when distance and the lack of infrastructures aggravated the already precarious situation of the first people to move into peri-urban residential areas.