CENTRALISATION OR PERIPHERLISATION? A ‘NEW DEAL” IN URBAN-RURAL RELATIONS

Centralisation or Peripheralization? A ‘New Deal’ in Urban-Rural Relations. Beginning with the new century a new concept of regional planning has established itself in Europe, being strongly related to long-term development, especially in post-industrial countries. Although the conceptual debate about such regions started relatively late, it has gained an important role in spatial planning and research. The need for a development towards a complex political multi-level system (supranational, nation states and local-regional) has become indispensable in a globalized world. An international undertaken in Germany, France, The Netherlands and Switzerland has shown that metropolitan regions are an important strategic tool for economic and regional development in all countries. The present paper aims to deal with the metropolization processes in Europe, comparing the main attitudes and approaches towards this concept, examining the way in which metropolitan regions have been understood in the academic literature. The paper aims also to gather and improve knowledge on the recent theoretical background which has promoted or has acted as the starting points in developing and elaborating metropolitan regions policies