Globalisation policies have been advocated by governments and by international development agencies as the most promising way out from underdevelopment. They argue that these policies would enhance the trading opportunities of the less developed regions in a world-wide market and would promote their internal modernisation by transferring advanced management and technology form global firms. Structural adjustments city marketing and infrastructure modernisation appear simultaneously as a requirement and as an outcome of the new age of globalisation.
The Research Atelier Alfa takes globalisation as an important component of current thinking about city, yet sees the city not as a purely macroeconomic imperative but as a social process of building and negotiations, in which different actors state their interest, propose solutions and generate decisions.
With globalisation the form of regions and cities is changing in an unprecedented way and a new role for large agglomerations in the national development strategies have appeared. This book seeks to provide an analytical framework and some empirical evidences for the discussion about the return of Big Plans.
