Intermediate Cities: large-scale specialized containment spaces for human capital and reproductive work

Abstract

The intermediate city is considered a connection between global cities and rural spaces. However, considering urbanization as the absolute answer, being able to solve the most frequent problems in cities limits the analysis, leading us to think in an urban system shaped exclusively of non-rural spaces, forgetting any other form of critical perception.
Consequently, in this article it is proposed to think  intermediate cities as territorialized space to contain the reproductive activity of human capital in order to ensure that intermediate cities function as private spaces on a large scale, so it is possible to posit that a) the function of this urban spatiality allows to understand that the reconfiguration of the global urban system is happening and proof of this is the creation of specialties and the blurring of other actors such as the Nation-State, b) this restructuring is constituted by a principle of specialization and spatialization and centralization of the various capitals, as well as migratory flows, labor flexibility and c) The importance of the workforce and its reorganization, it moves in a way not seen until now, we see mobility in smaller and more precise geographical sectors, from city to city.
The importance of reflecting on intermediate cities is sustained in its geopolitical role as it has a close relationship between dispossession by accumulation, sustaining the current economic model, the reorganization of migratory and habitat flows, problematizing the dilemma about "urban development" has arisen from historical processes of colonization, enclave economies, the destruction and domination of space to absorb it, refunctionalize it to generate a network of flows of economic, political, cultural, human and territorial capital.