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For Henri Lefebvre, the new town of Mourenx, built for the Lacq gas workers, does not represent the kind of town every human being is entitled to. It lacks the centrality, the common space that paves the way for chance encounters and collective development. Its conception is incompatible with the dynamics of society, with the possibility of a political voice for its inhabitants. Yet living becomes the fundamental social relationship when industrial work disappears. The city has to be invented as a common space, as a collective construction holding the inhabitants together.