« Promoting Nature and Real Estate Development : How Toponyms Can Tell The Story ».
Résumé
The origin of names given to most places in the United States allows us to open books which tell as much of personal stories and collective quests, as they do of national aspirations. Wherever individuals and communities settled down, names were attributed which identified with a new environment. Because of the individualistic development of western territories, the pioneers' contributions to geographical nomenclature had to be consequential. Not surprisingly, naming practices today are in direct lineage with those naming habits of the past. Residents in new neighborhoods by popular vote decide on the designations of their communities, the same way real estate agents work on the best denominations for their projects. Among the themes selected to name places nowadays, the heavy reliance upon environmental issues seems to be a predominant one. Although the present survey occasionally refers to a few town names, especially when opposing past practices to current ones, the corpus upon which this study has been based was constituted thanks to a cyberspace journey through Yahoo Yellow Pages which advertize apartment complexes for sale. The investigation encompassed fifteen cities across the nation (Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Phoenix, Denver, Minneapolis, Houston, Kansas City, New Orleans, Columbus, New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Miami, and Boston), with a total of some 2,100 ads—a true “Tale of Fifteen Cities”—with an approximate 7/8% displaying references to Nature.
Sans doute en réponse à l'expansion des grandes métropoles, les citadins américains semblent élaborer de nouvelles stratégies, plus écologiques, pour nommer les lieux, comme si une métamorphose onomastique de leur environnement proche pouvait compenser les nuisances de la vie urbaine. Mais au-delà de cette appréciation nouvelle, et plutôt enthousiaste, de la Nature se dessine un procédé de marketing inquiétant qui cache mal une authentique trahison et un souci patent de retombées lucratives. En effet, l'étude de la nomenclature appliquée à l'immobilier nous renseigne sur les caractéristiques des paysages que les promoteurs veulent associer à leurs produits, souvent à l'opposé de leur véritable apparence. Le présent article analyse les détails de cette nomenclature et tente d'expliquer les raisons de cette fascination pour les références à la Nature dans la désignation de nombreux projets immobiliers aux États-Unis.