New rural dwellers, active pensioners
or working people looking
for a golden retirementÂ… the
French are becoming mobile. Helped by
ever faster transport and spurred on by
property price rises, especially in Ile-de-
France and all the large cities, they no
long hesitate about moving and are
mainly searching for a better living environment.
"We came up to Paris because we had
to find a job!". A phrase that nearly every
thirty-something (or older) in Ile de
France has heard one of his parents
utter! Though the idea of a safe job still
fuels property investment and sustains
supply in Paris and Ile-de-France, the
trend is reversing. For several reasons.
The main criteria for home-buyers in the
capital are still the address and the choice
of schools. Buyers who couldn't decide
between living space and the leap in
property prices retreated to the inner
suburbs. And as the rises caught up with
them, to the outer suburbs. These "urban
country dwellers", who turned nearby
countryside into distant suburbs, appeared
at the same time as the "new towns"
were being built, and were the forerunners
of the "new rurals": a very open
club that is likely to welcome nearly 2.5
million members by 2008. Their motto,
shared by Parisians and the inhabitants
of the major regional cities: live in
towns built in the country.