Redes y territorio: la iniciativa IIRSA en foco

Networks and territory: IIRSA in focus In recent decades, geographers are facing the genesis of a new research field and professional action: the territorial development planning. That is the ambit where the debate on integration processes for territorial development is located, particularly those associated with the initiative process for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America (IIRSA). The South America Strategic Vision (VESA) becomes the main focus of this initiative, and the Indicative Territorial Planing Method is the central methodological tool to implement this vision and thus trigger sustainable development processes in the territory. We aim to unravel the relationship between the Brazilian territorial development strategy approach of and VESA. We note also some elements that should be taken into consideration so as to improve the methodological tool. In this sense, we start with the strategic vision to arrive proposing a new methodological and more integrative approach of the territory. The elements that connect one point to another pass through the methodological analysis of the proposal itself, the Integration and Development Axes, the study of relationships between networks and territories, as well as assessing the need for a proposed South American urban system. Such a system, we believe, should be the basis on which to support the whole structure of the integration process for the sustainable development of South American territory, including the IIRSA′s Axes and the necessary investments in the urban centers of the network and its hierarchy and functionality. Los geógrafos se enfrentan en las últimas décadas con el surgimiento de un nuevo campo de investigación y acción: el planeamiento del desarrollo territorial. Este es el ámbito donde se localiza el debate respecto de los procesos de integración para el desarrollo territorial, en particular aquellos procesos vinculados a la Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Sudamericana – IIRSA.La Visión Estratégica para la Integración Física Sudamericana (VESA) se constituye en el enfoque principal de tal iniciativa, y la Metodología de Planificación Territorial Indicativa, en la herramienta metodológica central para implantar dicha visión y, así, desencadenar procesos de desarrollo sostenible en el territorio.Pretendemos desentra ar las relaciones entre el enfoque de la estrategia de desarrollo territorial brasile o y la VESA. Se alamos, además, algunos elementos que deberían ser puestos en consideración de manera que se perfeccione la herramienta metod