This article discusses the role of medium towns as crucial anchors in achieving the policy goal of Territorial Cohesion. It highlights the need to counterbalance market trends to favour the continuous channelling of investment and people into larger metropolitan areas, by way of pro-active measures focused on attracting investment into medium towns, and as an alternative to dispersing public and private investment in lagging territories. Iberian and Nordic cases are examined in order to illustrate the possibilities and challenges of using 'Territorial Cohesion Cities' as development hubs in lagging regions, in order to achieve Territorial Cohesion at a national level.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.