Characterising housing supply with residential preferences. Elements for a conceptual renewal of the housing/environment dyad

Households' residential choices partially explain urban sprawl and its related issues, but the reasons for these choices are rarely analyzed through to the reality of residential facilities. To better understand these reasons, we propose to synthesize the offer of residential facilities into two antagonistic housing/environment dyads: individual housing in periurban area (T1) and collective housing in the city center or its near periphery (T2). We then confront these dyads to an alternative hypothesis, which associates the characteristics of individual habitat with those of urban centers, according to an innovative and relatively unprecedented architectural typology (T3). A photo-elicitation survey then confronts 650 respondents to these three housing/environment possibilities, and to the associated mobility practices. The survey aims to identify the determinants of residential choice (individual or collective housing, central or periurban spaces), to define the cognitive dimension expressed for each of these components, to identify links between the socio-professional characteristics of individuals, their housing preferences and their current mobility practices, and to evaluate the housing alternatives in terms of built typologies and geographical location. The results confirm the hypothesis that residential demand is mainly focused on individual housing in town centers or in their near periphery (T3). They invite to enlarge the classical analysis of urban spaces, by explicitly integrating a typomorphology of built-up areas and mobility as a determinant of residential choice.