Marie-Hélène Bacqué is a sociologist and urban planner. She teaches urban studies at the Université Paris Ouest Nanterre. She works on working class areas and their redesign, in particular on the former red belt (communist) suburbs of Paris and in Boston, Massachusetts. Her first research concerned Aubervilliers and Saint-Denis. She is particularly interested in types of collective and community mobilisation and in how residents can contribute to creating and transforming the city.