POLITICAL AND INSTITUTIONAL FACTORSIN THE TERRITORIAL DEVELOPMENT OF METROPOLITAN AREAS. THE CASE OF THE METROPOLITAN AREA OF LEON, GUANAJUATO, MEXICO.

Today, urban areas are exhibiting a social fragmentation and territorial dispersion. The cities are transformed, creating a new space focused partner organization, the city model that existed has been modified and now we have a model of diffuse, scattered and fragmented on city territories; the areas of influence have spread, sometimes even up to become metropolis or megalopolis. The metropolis arise when a city goes beyond its political and administrative territorial limit, to form an urban area located in two or more municipalities in which the central city is not located, but this implies that political political-institutional model that responded to the previous limit administrative, no longer responds to the new socio-spatial organization especially if you want to achieve the territorial development of this new urban area. This paper aims to examine the territorial development problems facing major metropolitan areas in Mexico, particularly those concerning the political and institutional factors to arrive at establishing a metropolitan coordination to joint efforts to design and implement development policies territorial. The works that have been made in governance involving coordination between different levels of government are reviewed, the involvement of organized civil society and the adjustments to the regulatory framework and the tasks in territorial development. In particular, we analyze the political and institutional factors in the territorial development of the metropolitan area of Leon, Guanajuato Mexico, one of the most important areas of the country, their experiences of management and coordination, progress and constraints for the construction of regional governance that achieves the implementation of a territorial development project.