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Drawing on in-depth interviews conducted with parents of children aged 8 to 14 in Paris (France) and Milan (Italy), this paper focuses on the different modes or steps of parental supervision of childrens’ urban practices, from private space to local space and then to the most frequented public spaces. Such a comprehensive approach of parents’ supervision of childrens’ urban practices allows us to distinguish a gradation of spaces perceived as protected from vehicles and “stranger-danger”. The observation of a local intermediate sphere between public and private highlights the role played by public familiarity ( interconnaissance local) in children’s supervision, the neighbourhood being associated with collective regulatory practices based on reciprocal expectations. In such a perspective, the local network of acquaintances could be considered as a fruitful sociological definition of the lived neighbourhood ( quartier vécu).