Abstract
This thesis tries to identify the transformations recently operated in the national network of the medium-sized cities and, at the same time, prospect the role of these cities in the local and regional development having as background the implementation of a development strategic intervention in a local network of cities.
The present essay is organised in three main parts. In the first one we do a theoretical framework where we systematize some of the conceptual and methodological trends which directly or indirectly influence the recent dynamics of the medium-sized urban centres. In the second part we identify the main development periods of the Portuguese urban system and we propose a new methodology for delimitation of the medium-sized urban centres which supports the analysis of the recent characteristics and dynamics of this group of cities. Finally as case-study we analyse the local urban system of Santarém/ Almeirim/ Cartaxo, where we realize a strategic diagnosis of the recent transformations in the territorial and social and economic dynamics. This diagnosis is based on quantitative and qualitative elements and on the development and investment options recently adopted by the different agents in order to draw a strategic development intervention.
At the national level the medium-sized cities have assumed an important functional role, introducing meaningful transformations in the structures of the productive systems and in the use of the local and regional resources. They have also revealed potential elements of social and cultural changes which can be seen in new ways of life. Inserted in diversified regional contexts this cities model the urban systems and the surrounding territories, creating new territorial configurations which are consequences of the mobilization of their resources and of the recent wilfulness of the different levels of administration, materialized in recent policy of positive discrimination, advantageous to the medium-sized cities.
In spite of a favourable territorial context, the local urban system of Santarem/ Almeirim/ Cartaxo has revealed difficulties to affirm itself either at the national or at the regional level. The insufficient potencialization and mobilization of the endogenous resources has become impossible the consolidation of a functional supported profile, essential for the constitution of innovating environments.
Having as supporter the interactive methodology of the strategic planning and the wager of contrasting scenarios through willed policies, we try to combine endogenous, exogenous and institutional factors essential to the promotion of the local urban system studied in its different dimensions. All those factors are also essential to the territorial protagonism of these cities and, consequently, to their new strategic position in the regional and national urban network.