The geographies of local austerity policies: a quantitative analysis of local budgets in France

Résumé :

The literature acknowledges the variety of local austerity policies, but has paid less attention to their geographical diversity. This paper questions the theorisation of space in this literature and investigates the relationships between local austerity policies and the diversity of local spatial systems. By combining two fiscal and socio-economic classifications of French municipalities, it provides a comprehensive and fine-grained mapping of local austerity for an entire country. Our findings demonstrate that austerity occurs in a wide range of local spatial systems and highlight numerous instances of mundane austerity that exist between affluent areas and those most severely impacted by austerity.