Reconciling top-down and bottom-up development policies

Top-down and bottom up development policies have been generally sold as two irreconcilable ends of the development intervention spectrum. Top-down policies, solidly based in micro- and macroeconomic theories, but lacking the adequate flexibility and ‘place-awareness’ to respond to local complexity; bottom-up approaches much more responsive to diverse territorial needs, but devoid of a clear conceptual framework. In this paper we aim to show that this division need not remain still and that the foundations of top-down and bottom-up development policies can be reconciled in a joint 'meso-level' conceptual framework which can serve simultaneously as a deductive justification for bottom-up local and regional development policies and as a coordination device between different policies.