Periurban Recreational Liveability

By combining cultural geography with the sociology of daily life, this article provides a new perspective on liveability, because it studies this concept as the source of a localized lifestyle. It mainly deals with the way inhabitants develop a sense of place based on that place’s recreational uses as well as on their preoccupation with their life environment. Its argumentation is based on an ongoing case study in Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte (Isere, France). The evolution of this periurban space is characterized by the fact that new inhabitants settle there, in keeping with a transition from tourism to dwelling. A database was created from questionnaire and interview surveys with the inhabitants as well as from in vivo observations in nature so as to draw a preliminary sketch of the geographical matrix of liveability, which is shown here to combine the three following dimensions: geographicity, sociability, and culturality.