space is one of the media for social activities, because they are searching for ideas of action, which provide people with insights to design their own work. This article is concerned with the arguments put forward by economic operators concerning their activities and their location; he reports them to represent the city. The survey is conducted in Le Havre and in Marseille, both of which have been the subject of the rehabilitation programmes: Port 2000 in one case, Euromedreatee in the other. These projects offer a reflexion time for local actors and allow for the expression of power between different concepts of space. The lexical analysis of a body of interviews makes it possible to map the representation of economic actors by considering them as lexical worlds. The effects of geography on the organisation and mobilisation of space and action concepts are also measured.