Contribution of an historical approach to define neighborhood units in urban, suburban and rural areas of the Quebec City region
This article is an original contribution to the definition of neighbourhood units in the context of a study on social inequalities with respect to health. After reviewing the concept of neighborhood, we propose an historical approach in order to define neighborhood units within three districts located in the Quebec City region: two Quebec City boroughs (Limoilou and Charlesbourg) and the municipal regional county (MRC) of Portneuf. This approach required collecting, adding together and summarizing all the modifications to administrative boundaries that these districts have undergone since the beginning of the 1960s. The original data was drawn from numerous sources, digitized, entered into a GIS, weighted according to certain criteria, and mapped. The results highlight a set of common areas shared by institutions and the population that they serve. As these areas are small and reflect social interactions. They can be linked with the notion of neighborhood.