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Using the examples of two cities in southwestern France, Pau and Bordeaux, this article purposes to test the theoretical hypothesis that geographical spaces are the result of intense and obstinate social production (largo sensu). The methodological model of social-spatial formation provides the operational tools for such a demonstration. The account of how the two territorial spaces of Pau and Bordeaux came about highlights the subtle intermingling between the geo-economic substrates of these strongly grounded societies and forms of power, as well as the ideological and cultural representations they have undergone over long periods of time. It is on this soil of produced and territorialized space (a palimpsest) that, for each individual consciousness, images emerge, facilitated by a sort of collective (or social) imagination that enriches and anchors his/her lived space to the territory. These representations, grounded in the senses, charged with affect, memory and ‘habitus’, both individual and suffused with collective ideology, bear witness to the way each individual relates to the space he lives in and prove invaluable in identifying the issues at stake when any urban development is planned.