The course aims to provide a wide critical preparation, both on the theoretical level and with reference to specific cases, on the different paths of territorial development: for what concerns both the urban dimension (first part of the course) and the regional latu sensu (second part of the course).In the first part. the teaching will cover those basic principles of urban economy that allow us to understand the birth and becoming of modern metropolis: why does the city (the principle of agglomeration) exist? Where are the activities in the city located (principle of accessibility)? What are the relationships established between the different activities (spatial interaction principle)? What relationships are created between the cities and the surrounding space (principle of hierarchy)? The second part of the course extends the analysis from the city to the regional and macro-territorial space, and then to the developmental imbalances within states. We will focus, in particular, on the different theories of regional growth: the approaches based on development phases or those that follow the center-periphery axis; the theses that focus on the role of demand and the market and, on the contrary, those that favor the supply side and therefore the endowment of factors; the models with increasing returns, formulated by the new economic geography or, alternatively, by the neo-classical approach.The different theories will be discussed and compared also through specific cases: the main field of empirical verification will be that of territorial imbalances in Italy, the ways in which they were formed and evolved in the contemporary age.