The aim of this paper is to estimate the extent of social specialization of residential space within the French Riviera metropolitan area. Unlike classical approaches, where social groups are pre-defined through given characteristics of households, our approach determines clusters of households inductively. Socio-demographic characteristics of households are thus measured through 16 different indicators. Clustering is then carried out through the optimization of two distinct criteria. Simulated annealing, simple and multi-objective Genetic Algorithm were adapted for this purpose and has produced pertinent results.