COEFICIENTES DE ADHERENCIA DE LAS SUPERFICIES DE PRUEBA

From time to time, M ontrealers are compared to 'nom adic people' by the local p re s s/ It is said that in Montreal m any people move, and that m any of them move at about the same time. It is also not uncommon for them to move frequently. We can read, however, that Montrealers are 'nom ads' that d o n 't move very far: they move on the same street, around the comer, in the same neighbourhood; sometimes in a different neighbourhood, a neighbourhood th a t is adjacent, close by, not too far. Indeed, short distance moves are the norm in Montreal. As Lavigne (1976) reports in her study of the inner city migrations in M ontreal, at the end of the 1970s changes of residences occurred over short distances. The General Social Enquiry of Statistics C anada of 1990 confirms this result. M ost of the C anadian households w ho move do so over short distances. Since the very majority of the changes of residence, that is 60%, occur within a distance of 10 km, it is plausible to think th at m ost of the people move w ithin the limits of the same city, w ithin the sam e municipality, even the sam e neighbourhood (Che-Alford, 1992). Ram et ah (1994) even show that the mobility rate diininishes as the distance of the move increases. In other w ords, people move all the more often when they d o n 't move far. My ethnographic evidence confirms these results. Sandra Parent w as relocated on

the same street, approxim ately 500 meters away; Gabriel and Anne moved on the same street, 250 meters away; the Lambert family moved between two street comers, less than 250 meters away; Beatrice Forgnes m oved on the same street, in the same neighbourhood, 250 meters away; Mme Debray moved into a residence located less than one kilometre away, in the same neighbourhood; Charlotte moved in the same neighbourhood, 500 meters away; Régine M erder rem ained in the same neighbourhood, less than 2 kilometres from her previous place; Mr Ricard moved in the same neighbourhood, a little more than 2 kilometres from his previous place. A nd yet, we could also speak about Caroline w ho changed neighbourhood, w ho moved from the Centre-South neighbourhood to Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, over a distance of less than 2 kilometres; about Mr Richer who moved from the Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood to the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood while remaining in the same adm inistrative territory of the Régie de la santé, less than 2 kilometres aw ay, etc. There are, of course, exceptions: Mira Filipovic moved from Vüle St-Laurent to Pierrefonds, a dozen kilometres away. She w ished to be closer to her workplace.^ Lisa Blackburn for her p art moved aw ay from her job, w hereas Marie-Sol moved close to her university, from the East side to the W est side of the city {see fig. 3).

W hat is the m eaning of all these displacements? Is moving simply the result of an instrum ental logic of 'adjustment'?^ When we consider th at short distance displacem ents are often taken to be 'w him s', the result of an 'insatiable restlessness',^ of a 'gentle mania'^ or of a 'déménagite'^ varying in acuteness

Because of the developm ent of the m odes of transportation and the generalisation of the use of the car in North-American urban centres since the second half of the 20th Centuiy, the proximity from the job location has lost some of its relevance in the choice of a residential location (Simmons, 1968). Lavigne (1976) even demonstrates that the average distance between the residential location and the job location w as, before the move, 3.9 km w ith a standard-variation of 4.4 km, and 3.7 km after the m ove w ith a standard-variation of 4.4 km. See Chapter 1.

See for instance Le D evoir, 30th June 1998, 2nd July 1994,18th June 1993; La Presse, 17th June

1998, 28th M ay 1992, 30th June 1991.

N ous, February 1975.

Le Journal de M ontréal, 1st July 1999; La Presse, 9th June 1991; Châtelaine, July 1981; La R evue Imperial O il, 1971.

according to its frequency, shouldn't we regard moving as the m anifestation of a lack of logic? In fact, those moves that occur over such short distances may easily be considered as avoidable moves, non-real ones. If w e p u t aside any custom ary num ber fetishism, however, short distance moves th at a priori give the impression of a great inertia reveal some high stakes. Indeed, I wiU argue that the distance of the move is im portant precisely because it is short. Short distances are tantam ount to the desire — or need — to stay in place and the desire to move. Should 1 stay or should I go? That is the question.