Raffestin thus makes a major contribution to the social sciences as a whole by defining territoriality as a form of spatial mediation of social relations. The importance which he places on the degree of autonomy which exists between the perception and the construction of power relations is the expression of a committed geography.

This book is about the real estate company that built, owned and managed the buildings the most famous street in Lyon, the "rue de la république", from the XIXth Century to the beginning of the XXth Century. Thanks to this original configuration in France, it is possible to link the story of a company and the story of an urban space.

The notion of social acceptance is omnipresent in spatial planning policies. Impact assessments, participative policies, good governance practices or the social sustainability of planning projects implicitly reveal the importance of such a concern. This book aims at bringing to the light the acceptability criteria of spatial development projects.

Using surveys and analyses in France and the Sahel region of Africa, this book provides the keys to understanding organisational dynamics, the emergence of a highly structured associative movement in both African and Western countries, and introduces the new spatial and social hierarchies.