Management strategies, territorial development and cooperation in Galicia at the beginning of the 21st century

Abstract

For the author, the compendium of rules, policies and legislative initiatives urged in Galicia over
the last twenty years, in the hope of encouraging different types of planning to accomplish a
progressive structuring and revitalization of its territory have had little effect. The same is felt for
the innovative strategies for territorial management and cooperation brought in upon a regional
scale as these offered little more than the creation of short term voluntary Associations of
municipalities, and some local consortia while putting off for another day the labour of developing
and implementing of truly fresh regional institutions and metropolitan areas endowed with a
thorough-going legal management entity. Given this picture of affairs, this paper tackles, from a
critical perspective, the several regulations that have been approved, the real impact of the
Regional Development Plan, the articulating of Functional Areas and the main forms of territorial
cooperation that are being carried forward in the Autonomous Community of Galicia, as well as the
polycentric urban system refl ected in the recent Land Management Guidelines adopted at the end
of 2008.