While geographers have for sometime been interested in power at the local level, it is primarily sociologists and political scientists who have studied it systematically. To better understand the relation between municipal power and urban space, the geographer must become involved in affairs of the citizenry. Such was the case in the restructuration of the neighbourhoods of Ste-Foy. To deal with power at this level and in this way constitutes an exercise in applied geography and requires research methods thus far underdeveloped in geographic training. In the present case, two conceptions confront each other : (1) that of the municipality which tends to make of the neighbourhoods a mere electoral district without taking into account the concerns of citizens regarding problems wrought by municipal government itself; (2) that of citizens for whom the neighbourhood constitutes a living environment and a means by which democratie urban planning can be carried out. A compromise succeeded in partial satisfaction without providing ultimate solutions. The entire process went far beyond the simple redefinition of electoral districts which preceded the November 1981 elections. For the people with whom the author worked, knowledge of their « space » became power when placed in their own hands. The result was a modification in the power relationship between traditional tenants of power and the citizens. Geographers can easily contribute to the redefinition of this new power relationship, but to do so necessitates a reexamination of the role of the university in society.