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Using data from the Biographies et Entourage ‘Event histories and contact circle’ survey, conducted by INED in 2001, we will examine urban transformations via the mobility behaviour of 2830 residents in the Paris region. The analysis of residential trajectories has been a major focus of research in recent years but the influence of the social environment has rarely been taken into account. The aim of the article is to understand the urban dynamics and the process of social segregation (from the city centre gentrification to the peripheral settlement dynamics) over a period of 40 years. We will try to include social change at municipal level in the analysis of residential trajectories, taking into account changes in the social structure of municipalities which are partly the result of these individual mobilities. From a ‘nominal harmonic analysis’ several types of trajectories could be identified: those that took place between municipalities of equivalent social standing and those that involved change, either upwards to a municipality with a higher social standing or downwards to a municipality with lower social standing.