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The main level at which territorial competition occurs is that of spatial development: that is, the localization of new residential, industrial and commercial settlements and of collective infrastructures – and therefore the localization of functions (places where goods and services are supplied).

The spatial development of a territory is a crucial level of regulation. Choices related to spatial development have direct, profound and enduring effects on a territory’s economic development – and for this reason they have been constantly subjected to regulation in modern societies.

In the past decade, the spatial development of the Province of Macerata ’s territory has assumed forms of critical importance – and control of its trajectory has become an issue central to the Province’s economic development.

Individual municipal administrations have begun to compete against each other, and for the first time in the recent history of the  Province, they have drawn up and implemented spatial development schemes by assuming a competitive perspective, as regards not only residential and industrial areas but also the localization of commercial and recreational services. This has generated a trajectory of spatial development characterized by the wide diffusion of private settlements across the territory.

The social costs of urban sprawl are very high. They can be expressed in terms of an increase in car mobility (with the consequential environmental costs and inefficient use of time), loss of urban quality and of landscape values, and oversized building capital. Moreover, urban sprawl generates high demand for transport infrastructures connecting dispersed poles, and therefore high demand for public investment.

In light of spatial development guidelines laid down by the European Union in recent years, engendering sustainable and balanced spatial development which produces higher building density and preserves landscape values would seem to be the strategic solution.