Resumo

MENDEZ, Ricardo. La construcción de redes locales y los procesos de innovación como estrategias de desarrollo rural. Prob. Des [online]. 2006, vol.37, n.147, pp.217-240. ISSN 0301-7036.

The rural areas face a need to reconstruct their economies and make their societies dynamic so that they can respond to the new conditions associated with global capitalism. Recent studies refer to the existence of different trajectories in which the more dynamic territories appear to be those that have been able to build business and institutional networks enabling them to drive sustained processes of economic and social innovation. To spread that type of behavior into the rural areas, the intermediate cities may become strategic in order to concentrate resources and initiatives which can then make their environments dynamic.

Palavras-chave : rural development; innovation; networks; local productive systems; intermediate cities.