The autonomous discourse of the police, which appeared during the eighteenth century, took interest in urban space. The efficiency of the police was now connected with its ability to impose control on urban space. Various solutions were then implemented to adapt theoretical zoning to urban life, and to obtain an optimal use of territorial policemen. The new districts of the police were confronted with old neighborhood institutions, which they destroyed, ignored or used again. So the police approach gives a leeway to the complex process of dividing urban space.