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Conflict Activity in the Neighborhoods of Quebec City (Canada), 1989–2000

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Abstract

This research focuses on the analysis of the spatial distribution of 149 urban conflicts occurring between 1989 and 2000 in Quebec City, Canada. Specifically, the article explores the relationship between the spatial dynamics of the conflicts—in terms of frequency, duration, and intensity—and the following four dimensions of urban space: social composition; built environment; propensity to associate and to voice; and accessibility to various urban resources. The results of statistical analyses by means of a Kruskal–Wallis test and a Mann–Whitney test show, regardless of the dimension considered, to what extent certain areas are characterized by frequency, duration, or intensity of the conflict activity. Specifically, the results suggest that the degree of involvement of local people in a conflict varies very much depending on the nature of the social composition. Other findings show a relationship between areas with a high propensity to associate and to voice and a conflict activity that is more intense, more frequent, but not necessarily longer. These forms of social practices are thus testimony to the existence of know-how, i.e., a culture of conflict activity oriented towards efficiency.

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Notes

  1. The municipal mergers that occurred in January 2002 created a new and greater City of Quebec with eight boroughs and nearly 500,000 inhabitants. The data used in this paper, however, was collected prior to the year 2002. To distinguish the two, we will refer to the region under study as Quebec City.

  2. This period covers the time when the municipal political party in power was the Rassemblement Populaire de Québec (Quebec People’s Party). Consequently, conflicts that occurred at this place and during this period belong to the same municipal political context.

  3. This concept of places was inspired by works of Lecourt (2003).

  4. A complete description of the procedures can be found in Pelletier et al. (2007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre de recherche en aménagement et développement, Université Laval, Pavillon Félix-Antoine-Savard, local 1636, Québec, Canada, G1K 7P4

    Mathieu Pelletier, Florent Joerin & Paul Y. Villeneuve

  2. Département de médecine sociale et préventive, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Yan Kestens

  3. Direction de santé publique de l’Agence de santé et des services sociaux de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Yan Kestens

  4. Centre de recherche du centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada

    Yan Kestens

Authors
  1. Mathieu Pelletier
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  2. Florent Joerin
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  3. Yan Kestens
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  4. Paul Y. Villeneuve
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mathieu Pelletier.

Appendix I

Appendix I

Results of relationships between each type of homogenous areas (Mann–Whitney test) for each of one dimensions of the urban environment and all three properties of conflict activity

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Pelletier, M., Joerin, F., Kestens, Y. et al. Conflict Activity in the Neighborhoods of Quebec City (Canada), 1989–2000. Appl. Spatial Analysis 4, 173–199 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-010-9050-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12061-010-9050-8

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