Our study is a one of the possible keys to understanding the various present-day types of sports activities and recreational and cultural sports practiced by the people living in the 3Cités, a working class neighborhood in Poitiers (France). We inquire about the role of the neighborhood as a defining element of identification which reshapes the pratice of sports activities and redevelops public space. Not only sports activities, but also social and cultural activities seem thus to depend both on local policies (involved in the availability of sporting facilities) and on the city and public policies. Taking into account the array of sports and recreational activities serves a socio-anthropological goal which allows us to understand whether and how the redevelopment of a working-class neighborhood (i.e. the urbanization of a peripheral space in a medium-sized city) contributes to the achievement of the political goals of integration, social mixity and cohesion. Also, we wonder whether or not this type of redevelopment may favor the struggle against geographical isolation and social segregation so as to foster equal opportunities for all. To answer these questions we provide a socio-demographical analysis of the population of an area where native-born French citizens share the space with French citizens of foreign origin and foreigners. This analysis allows us to address the two-fold issue of the evolution of the various types of sports activities and of the expectations connected with them. It is equally the opportunity to dicuss the factors impeding access to or leading to a lack of involvement in the pratice of sports activities. Consequently, we focus on the practice of sporting activities by females, since women seem to be less involved in sporting activities, in either institutional or unconventional contexts. We aim to explain how the pratice of sporting activities by females is influenced by the availability of sporting activities and by social factors such as native culture, socioeconomic living conditions ans parents' involvement in the sporting environment.
