ABSTRACT
The idea that the urban region, and even the less defined, vague spaces at the inner and outer fringes, could have their own identiti(es), as do any other spaces, became an object of investigation, intervention, and growing debate during the last decades. This chapter retraces the conceptual origins of this turn. It discusses the changing perception of the city and its region in town planning since the beginning of the twentieth century. It proposes three time sections: During the twentieth century deterministic concepts predominantly focused on the urban landscape or the compact city. In the early twenty-first century the consciousness of uncertainty became prevalent, paving the way for more relational, open approaches aiming at shaping and conceptualizing, the new urban-rural space. Urban growth and urbanisation dynamics triggered the emergence and the professionalisation of urban and regional planning and design during the second half of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.
