Urbanisation et structures agricoles de la région parisienne entre 1955 et 1966. Essai de méthode

Urbanization and Agricultural Structures in the Paris Region between 1955 and 1966. In order to define a suitable program of rural planning, it is first necessary to analyze the transformations occurring in agricultural structures as a result of urbanization. This article explains how to prepare a "spatial diagnostic" or representation of situations in geographical space, the first step in such an analysis. After describing the principal characteristics (size of farms, mechanization, production, population) of the region to be examined (the departments of Seine-et-Marne, Val-d'Oise, Yvelines and Essonne), a region "where agriculture and urban development are in conflict, the author discusses his choice of variables that will permit the description of the main aspects of agricultural structure and change and the correlation of the decline, stability, or prosperity of farming with urbanization. The 57 variables selected are listed in Table 1. Next he explains the analytic techniques employed and the methodological framework to which they refer. Factor analysis (Varimax and Promax) is used to define groups of interdependent variables, and dissimilarity analysis, to determine type-situations. Various tables give the results of these analyses, which are then compared with those obtained by the MEAR (Mission d'Étude d'Aménagement Rural) in its study of rural development in the Paris region. The author feels that the method he proposes is more rapid than the traditional one used by the MEAR, and that its results are clearer and more objective. In conclusion, he recommends (to geographers) the use of information theory and its concepts

Agricultural productivity · Agriculture · Biplot · Descriptive statistics · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Population · Prosperity · Regional science · Sociology · Statistics · Urbanization · Varimax rotation · Welfare economics · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Demography · French Urban and Social Studies · Mathematics