Michel Bussi

Formes de marche et immersions dans la nature : ressourcements et dépaysements dans les forêts urbaines

Many recreational practices consist of symbolically and physically breaking away from the city and responding to a need for renewal and/or a change of scenery. This article discusses specific immersions arising from different kinds of walking practices in urban forests. It describes this type of environment before presenting the experimental site used for the research (a metropolis with 500,000 inhabitants and its green belt) and the corresponding methodology. The multiscale analysis describes how three different groups (urban residents, urban residents living at the edge of the forest, and recreational walkers) perceive and visit the forest. As common as they are, recreational walks show that certain territories such as forests involve deep immersion which is not available to everyone. A territorial description of outdoor recreational practices is essential to show the differences between kinds of walks and forms of well-being.

Residing in the city, living on the fringe of the forest: differentiated forest leisure activities, significant urban adjustments

ABSTRACT This contribution deals with the spatial and social distribution of forest-fringe residents of the Rouen metropolis (France) and demonstrates how their forest-based leisure activities indicate and play a role in establishing their environment. A multi-scale approach contextualizes the study, explains the survey strategy used and shows how and to what degree these residents live between the city and forest. The sample is based on four very different residential forms reflecting different means of living in the city and reveal different ways of using nature, thus leading us to contemporary redefinitions of city–nature relations, which lie at the heart of the issues and mutations facing our urban condition.

La carte électorale : miroir de la démocratie ?

La carte electorale est un peu comme la carte meteorologique, un objet visuel bien connu du grand public auquel on ne prete pas forcement une grande valeur scientifique, et sur laquelle chacun peu disserter a partir de son experience locale et de ses intuitions nationales. La carte electorale par defaut L’histoire de la carte electorale se confond avec celle de la discipline geographique, depuis qu’elle fut testee pour la premiere fois par Andre Siegfried dans son Tableau politique de la Fran...