This article looks at the diversity of forms of belonging and lifestyles of commuters from periurban areas. It questions the assumption that the growing individualism reflected in the development of and preference for single-family housing on the outskirts of towns is a question of space. The analysis is based on research conducted in the area surrounding Dijon, where surveys were carried out on city-dwellers who had moved to the countryside just outside the city, but also on people from rural areas who had found jobs and services in the neighbouring town. From the point of view of personal journeys, there is a contrast between the loop travelled by people from rural areas, who are drawn back to the village they came from, and the stepped journey of city-dwellers, who come to ownership of their homes in stages. Apart from the divergence in where they come from, there is another distinction that concerns how they belong to where they live, reflected in their daily movements and social networks. Attachment is a feature of the most fragile households, and is expressed by a withdrawal into the home, the only secure place in an environment characterised by mobility and uncertainty. Anchorage is a feature of households that have acquired know-how concerning networks and mobility. These methods of belonging ultimately reflect different forms of individualism: the individualism of a withdrawal into security in the first case and the individualism of an openness to likeminded people in the second.