TERRITORIAL PLANNING, DESCENTRALIZATION, AND METHODOLOGICAL POSITIVIZATION: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PDOT IN THREE INTERMEDIATE ECUADORIAN CITIES

ORDENAMENTO TERRITORIAL, DESCENTRALIZAÇÃO E POSITIVAÇÃO METODOLÓGICA: UMA ANÁLISE CRÍTICA DOS PLANOS DE DESENVOLVIMENTO E ORDENAMENTO TERRITORIAL EM IBARRA, RIOBAMBA E CUENCA

Abstract

This article examines the Territorial Development and Land Use Plans (PDOT) in Ecuador as devices that articulate the relationship between the central State and subnational governments. Through the analysis of management models of PDOT in three intermediate Andean cities —Ibarra, Riobamba, and Cuenca—, it problematizes the tension between the rhetoric of decentralization and the mechanisms of central control over municipal investment priorities. The results show that PDOT systematically prioritize competencies related to physical infrastructure and public facilities over territorial regulation competencies, responding to a financing logic that rewards visible and quantifiable works. Furthermore, it is identified that the decentralization legal framework has operated simultaneously as a transfer of competencies and as an instrument of functional recentralization, limiting the effective autonomy of local governments. It is concluded that territorial planning constitutes a field where State projects and power relations are expressed, operating more as a device for organizing space than as a mechanism for transforming territorial inequalities