Despite being mentioned in several EU documents in recent decades, Territorial Cohesion is still a very much misunderstood and illusive concept, both for politicians and for academics. Over the years, the EU Cohesion Policy rationale has been gradually shifting towards a growth and investment agenda, following on from the main goals of EUROPE 2020, TA2020, the EU Urban Agenda and the overall current economic context faced by EU territories. The focus is now on the big cities, the MEGAs and FUAs. The fact that few EU countries present a dominant ’polycentric’ urban system pattern, leads to policy implementation problems in ’monocentric’ countries. Many of the ‘monocentric’ countries also experience significantly low population densities than countries in Central Europe. In this light, the rise of a ‘Territorial Cohesion narrative’ poses crucial challenges. This paper aims to discuss the role of medium towns as crucial anchors in achieving the policy goal of Territorial Cohesion. It highlights the need to counterbalance market trends to favour the continuous channelling of investment and people into larger metropolitan areas, by means of proactive measures focused in attracting investment to medium towns, as an alternative to dispersing public and private investment in lagging territories. Iberian and Scandinavian cases are examined in more detail in order to illustrate the possibilities and challenges of using ‘Territorial Cohesion Cities’ as development hubs in lagging regions to achieve Territorial Cohesion at a national level.

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Territorial Cohesion Cities,Territorial Cohesion,Lagging Regions,EU Cohesion Policy