Mutations urbaines, mutations démographiques. Contribution à l'explication de la déprise démographique des villes-centres

The new modalities of urbanisation have resulted among others in a phenomenon of sprawl and of population deconcentration at the intra-urban scale. Between 1970 and 2000, the city of Neuchâtel lost nearly 6 000 inhabitants. By studying the households, we can get a precise grasp of the nature of this demographic loss. The fact that the city saw during the same time-span an increase of 2 000 households leads us to reject the hypotheses related to the destruction of dwellings, to the transformation of appartments for other forms of use, or to a lack of attractivity of the city (that would be corroborated by a high vacancy rate). The apparent contradiction between a population loss and an increase in the number of households is explained by the reduction of their average size. Therefore, despite a densification of the built environment with the construction of new dwellings we witness a de-densification process of the population.