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.

This book, deals with what sociology owes to the contents of social action, drawing on a series of case-studies from the 70ies on. Their gathering into the term « environment paves the way to their aknowledgement as plain agents of social link.

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.