Commercial proximities in Paris. An approach to shopping through mobilities
Ulysse LASSAUBE, member of Géographie-cités, will present his doctoral thesis in Geography, “Une ville “à la carte” : proximités commerciales à Paris, une approche de l’achat par les mobilités” (A city “à la carte” : commercial proximity in Paris, an approach to purchasing through mobility)
on Thursday, February 24, 2022 at 2pm,
at the Hôtel de Ville de Paris
Abstract
This thesis proposes a renewed approach to proximity in geography through the study of shopping trips of different populations in Paris. To this end, the thesis uses a mixed methodology that combines quantitative approaches, through the mobilization of a database of Parisian first floor shops and the use of a questionnaire, and qualitative approaches, through interviews and the use of other tools that allow us to understand the actual shopping practices of individuals.
In order to provide an exhaustive approach to shopping practices, the survey was carried out in four Parisian areas which present diverse commercial landscapes and which respond to specific local problems (a tourist district: Montmartre; the metropolitan hypercentre: Les Halles; a working-class district: Fontaine-au-Roi; a more affluent district: Passy), with people who live, work or visit there for another reason The results qualify the exclusivity of the home neighborhood as the only spatial reference for making purchases. Indeed, by developing an ad hoc model of shopping trips that presents various behaviors (unipolarized, bipolarized or multipolarized), the thesis shows that proximity cannot be considered in a simple spatiotemporal radius around the home of individuals, but that it is in fact articulated on a network of places of consumption, of work, of leisure and of other “gateways” that open up the routines of individuals to other commercial proximities.