Development and Territorial planning in Ecuador at cantonal scale. Planning Zone 6 Case study.

Abstract

In concordance to the current national legislation of Ecuador, stated on 2008, a set of Plans for Development and Territorial organization were drawn up and took in force since 2014. This article aims to analyze the adoption –or not- of their recommendations, which constitutes the first experience in territorial planning. The cantons which belong to the planning Zone 6, have been selected as case study.  The theoretical analysis identifies some possible factors: economic, environmental, legal-administrative, political and sociocultural, that might affect the adoption of such plans. Moreover, a deep analysis is presented concerning to five conglomerates of cantons, which were defined considering eleven variables, to assess the influence of the aforementioned factors on the conglomerates.