The article gives an inventory and update on the struggle of Urban Social Movements, especially the São Gonçalo Daycare Center Movement (ArtCreche), which since 1980, has been building a collective agenda of demands and struggles with the public authorities and civil society in São Gonçalo. From a theoretical/conceptual point of view, we focus on the struggle of ArtCreche through a dialogue with the authors, who refer to the outbreak of popular movements in the 1980s, and their ebb in the post-democratization period in Brazil, harking back to the context of changes in response to the classic and contemporary paradigms of popular participation. In this article, we investigate women’s struggle for the right to daycare, based on a qualitative, participant study, prioritizing an analysis of local power, in dialogue with the concept of popular hegemony.