ABSTRACT
The recent history of territorial planning in Brazil can be narrated as a continuous, albeit non-linear, trajectory of political, intellectual and institutional dismantling. This process both derives from, and contributes to, an accelerating process of territorial fragmentation that challenges all of those concerned with the need to implement a national project worthy of the name. This chapter aims to identify and analyze the main vectors of this process of fragmentation, including large investment projects (LIPs), competitive neolocalism and the old regionalism with its patron/client networks. It then briefly examines the theoretical-conceptual frameworks of the LIPs and, in particular, of competitive neolocalism, which today comprises the main recipe offered to peripheral and dependent countries by multilateral agencies and international consultants. The conclusion explores whether, and to what extent, contemporary social processes reveal the emergence of tendencies and forces capable of neutralizing the vectors of fragmentation and promoting a national project in which territorial planning occupies a central place.
