Exploring Collaborative Urban Strategies: Volume 12 Globalization Urban Form & Governance

The opening of the economy to external markets has brought about the reassessment of the significance of large spatial agglomerations and the accentuation of polarization at national scale. The dual movement of centralization and de-concentration processes, inwards and outwards, contributes to urban sprawl beyond the limits of metropolitan areas, as has been demonstrated in Shanghai, Jakarta, Delta Metropolis, Mexico City, Sao Paolo and Santiago. It's consequences for urban structure and urban morphology are immense and complex, and it has fostered social fragmentation of space, changing location opportunities, land uses and centralities. The importance of transport and communication is accentuated, large intra and inter urban connectivity are generated together with the generation of articulated networks, corridors, nodes with impact in land values. New lifestyles, new urban environments and new forms of governance emerge and need to be theoretically and empirically underpinned.