This essay attempt to summarise what is known about the mediterranean cities and their relationship to the so-called Global Cities, principally based on immaterial fluxes, which offer a growing centrality to cities networks and communication systems. A new dualism has sprung, global/local, pointing out the problem of local cultures’ knowledge and preservation as fundamental elements for their planning and management. An important matter could be to define the Mediterranean City, not only through geographical or morphological schemes, but also considering social, economic and cultural elements, like the borders’ permeability, the predominance of the family on the State or the predominance of an informal economy. Most of these urban realities reveal a “culture of the derogation” and a great rural immigration that give still significance to a classification of resident population, instead of those based on the service users. Moreover, the large Mediterranean urban areas are usually based on a unique centre, rich of economic and human resources, connected to a hinterland poor and degraded, without any kind of identity. On the economic side, the need of entering in the global market lead these cities facing the international scale and finding a strong characterisation. On the social side, it could increase the social exclusions with the danger of conflicts. Anyway, every solution must start from the regional scale with public policies which aim to promote the consensus,exceeding the urban/rural distinctions and stimulating the local community participation.
