ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the growing importance of strategic, systemic and integrated approaches to urban development, considering how the dimensions and values of urban regeneration are articulated within a new collaborative planning and governance framework. Greater Porto is commonly identified as the most important NUTS III of the North Region and as the second metropolitan area of Portugal, comprising a number of different municipalities. Apart from clear changes in planning approach and expected results, POLIS XXI also aimed to promote local initiative projects that seek to qualify and interconnect cities or different areas within a specific city, bolstering their human, institutional, cultural and economic capital. Changes in the field of spatial planning and governance have been accompanied by the cultural turn in economic geography. The new methods of territorial planning and governance pay increasing attention to the distinctive details and forms of cities but also to different groups and citizens' needs and expectations.
