Residential choice and sustainability : comparing people and place performances in sprawled city

This thesis examines the sustainability performance of households’ behaviors and compares it to their place of living. This thesis deals with an innovative and important subject. The results shed light on the complexity of the links between residential behaviors and the living environment regarding sustainability behaviors. With the aim of identifying variables to evaluate behavioral sustainability, it investigates the scientific evidence. The results show that the indicators frequently used to assess the sustainability of the places depict the built environment regarding its form, functions and density, and its socio-economic features. To evaluate the behavioral sustainability, multiple indicators are used of different natures, that is, environmental, social, economic, and transport modes related to daily mobility, as well as traveled space and time. The links found between sustainability performance of places and behaviors are described as matching or lacking congruity. An inventory framework is proposed to help to study the performance of residential choice concerning the three pillars of sustainability. Applying this framework, a group of 740 households with at least one respondent working full-time is analyzed. The database is « Demain Québec » an Internet survey of residents of the Quebec City metro area detailing their socio-economic profiles, residences and mobility characteristics. To assess the behavioral sustainability, a principal component analysis is performed on 20 variables. Six factors are extracted accounting for 74.9% of the variance. They are as follows: 1) Car dependency, global travel distance, and economic costs, 2) Global activity intensity, 3) Recreational activity intensity and travel distance, 4) Shopping activity intensity and travel distance, 5) Travel distance in public transport and global travel time costs, and 6) Housing expenditures and global active transport distance. These factors are put on to a two-step clustering analysis leading to identification of seven behavioral profiles: « Immobile Shoppers », « Immobile Recreationist using Public Transport », « Savers-on-Time and Spenders-on-Housing », « Mobile Individuals using Public Transport », « Mobile Individuals using Active Transport », « Hypermobile Shoppers using Car », and « Recreationist using Car ».   To assess the sustainability performance of places and to compare it to the profiles of behaviors, we use the neighborhood Walk Score. The results confirm the correspondence between place and people’s performance for some profiles, while for the others, the influence of location seems to be interfered by socio-economic characteristics of households. In some groups, neither these indicators do not account for the fitness or discrepancy between the both. It is rather the households’ prevailing activities in relationship with the location in which they go on that plays a crucial role in sustainable prosperity. In the final step, the thesis examines the desirability of sustainable residential choices, understood as satisfaction-with and aspiration for, based on the behavioral typologies developed in the previous step. The results show residential choices that at once sustainable and desirable are possible. However, households who make such choices are less satisfied with the greenery, quietness, and ambiance, security, and characteristics of neighbors. Also, sources of dissatisfaction does not necessarily drive the moving intentions. The main reasons for moving are often connected to the desire to become a homeowner or having access to a larger residence. On their residential choice decisions, households regard mostly the environmental features which are in accordance with their needs and goals at a particular stage in their life’s course, as well as their dominant activity. Although the built environment plays a major role in the achievement of desirable sustainable choices, the households are the protagonist in enhancing sustainable prosperity.

Keyphrases: Enquête quantitative, Residential choice, Household behaviors, Sustainability performance, Quantitative survey, Cluster analysis