Examines the emergence of European urban networks and their consequences for the new position that each city has acquired through the internationalization of trade. Describes the networking process from the point of view of transport infrastructure, accesibility, and the new economic and political links that are growing up between cities. Covers mainly the period from 1970 to 1990.

This text challenges the belief that cities will eventually disappear as territorial forms of social organization as new information technologies permit the articulation of social processes without regard for distance, arguing that the specific role of cities will become more important, and proposing that a dynamic and creative relationship be built up between the local and the global. In this way, cities will remain the focus of social organization, political management and cultural expression, equipped to deal with the enormous social and environmental problems of urbanization.

On the world map, macro-regions or global regions have gradually emerged, with varying degrees of success and following different trajectories. The authors of this book attempt to determine whether, within the context of globalization, these macro-regions have become an additional level in the spatial deployment of numerous actors, and whether they have come to stand between the national and global levels. This question has arisen because the increasing scales of trade, environmental problems, migration routes, energy distribution, the construction of major infrastructures etc. transcend national boundaries and are leading states to implement macro-regional cooperation. The authors ask whether these large regional groupings are becoming genuine territories and are the fruit of in-depth regional integration – economic, institutional, legal, normative, political, cultural and in terms of identity. If so, these global regions would therefore become referents that make sense and take root in social representations.

Henri Lefebvre is undoubtedly one of the most influential thinkers in the field of urban space and its organization; his theories offer reflections still valid for analyzing social relations in urban areas affected by the crisis of the neoliberal economic system. Lefebvre’s ideal of the “right to the city” is now more widely accepted given today’s current cultural and social situation. Most current research on Henri Lefebvre refers solely to his ideas and their theoretical discussion, without focusing on the empirical transcription of the philosopher. This book fills this gap, and proposes examples about the empirical use of Henri Lefebvre’s sociology from the perspective of different cities and researchers in order to understand the city and its evolutions in the context of neoliberal globalization. The book’s main purpose is to revisit Lefebvre’s still-relevant key concepts to propose new comprehensions of the contemporary city. Case studies in this book will show also that the reception of Lefebvrian concepts differs across different contexts, depending on the social and political circumstances of each country. The debates in this book both expand the scope of urban imagination, and help to reinvigorate, unify, and empower shared desires for just urban outcomes. The contributions to this book also illuminate the everyday choices concerning the form and social processes of the city, and the inspiration that they draw from Lefebvre’s theoretical legacy in the realm of urban sociology.