What are the districts, cities, or intermunicipalities of the metropolis of Greater Paris where we live the most between rich and poor, less rich and less poor, in short, in social diversity? And the places where, on the contrary, a form of self-segregation is practiced? A study by Insee Ile-de-France provides some answers to these questions, and places Le Kremlin-Bicêtre (Val-de-Marne) at the top of the most mixed towns.
In this city, the share of the population that lives in a neighborhood considered mixed is 83%. Second place on the podium is for the town of Lilas (Seine-Saint-Denis), with 78%, and third for Le Pré-Saint-Gervais (Seine-Saint-Denis), 77%. “Most of the most mixed municipalities or districts are located on an eastern crescent going from Clichy (70%) to Malakoff (76%)”, explains INSEE in this study entitled “Social diversity and segregation in the metropolis of Greater Paris : inventory and trends over 15 years”.
In Marnes-la-Coquette, we live among the rich
However, it is difficult to compare these municipalities with others in France, according to Mustapha Touahir, deputy regional director of Insee Île-de-France: “The mix is analyzed within the agglomeration. Because a district considered as mixed in Paris will not necessarily be considered as mixed in Lyon because it is not the same scale of income”.
The opposite of diversity is segregation, which designates “the unequal territorial distribution of inhabitants according to their level of income”. It is the city where Johnny Hallyday lived which holds this sad record, according to INSEE. In Marnes-la-Coquette (Hauts-de-Seine), 95% of the population lives in a neighborhood deemed “segregated”. We find in second position Dugny, in Seine-Saint-Denis, but for other reasons: here, we do not rub shoulders with the rich, or almost none. 82% of the population lives in a neighborhood considered to be “segregated”, in this case, a community of poor people. The proportion of executives in Dugny, for example, is 5.4%, in comparison it is 15.1% in Seine-Saint-Denis and 46.0% in Paris.
Diversity is linked to social housing
The poorest and richest cities are not necessarily the same as the most segregated. “You can have very high incomes in a city and still have all the populations represented,” explains Mustapha Touahir. In December, the Inequality Observatory indicated that Grigny in Essonne and Clichy-sous-Bois in Seine-Saint-Denis had the highest poverty rates, while Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt (Yvelines) and Gif-sur-Yvette ( Essonne) were those where this rate was the lowest.
It is generally because there is a lot of social housing there that a neighborhood or municipality is mixed. “For example, in the most mixed neighborhoods of the Greater Paris Metropolis, 25% of households live in social housing, 36% in private rental housing and 39% are owner-occupiers” explains INSEE Ile-de-France .
The increasingly mixed north-east of Paris
If we look not only at the municipalities, but at the eleven groupings of municipalities that make up the metropolis of Greater Paris (known as “territorial public establishments” or “EPT”), it is Paris that is the champion of diversity. Nearly half (48%) of Parisians live in a neighborhood considered mixed, a mix “mainly driven by the districts of eastern Paris”, according to INSEE, and which is even strengthening over time in the North. – Is Parisian, because bobos and prolos live more and more side by side.
Conversely, it is in Plaine commune, an inter-municipal structure which includes Aubervilliers, La Courneuve, Épinay-sur-Seine, L’Île-Saint-Denis, Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen- sur-Seine, Stains and Villetaneuse, where there is the least social diversity. 14% of the population lives there in neighborhoods deemed to be mixed, compared to 52% in a segregated area. This is, explains INSEE, due to a “concentration of low-income households” and the presence of many single-parent families, in particular.
Good news, the mix has still increased in Plaine Commune, between 2004 and 2019, by 4.4 points. This is better than for the entire metropolis of Greater Paris, where it is down slightly, by 1.3%.
