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A vast literature has investigated processes of spatial reconfiguration, contributing to the emergence of a ‘new urban question’ that not only reframes traditional urban issues but also challenges our understanding of what cities are today. Be that as it may, the ‘European city model’ still remains current, particularly with regards to the institutional role of cities as they are increasingly considered to be relevant policy actors. This urban paradox gives new emphasis to the urban regional scale and urgently calls for the two dimensions to be connected both in terms of territorial dynamics and policy formulation. This paper addresses the topic by focusing on the functional area approach promoted by the European Union regional policy discourse, and by discussing how it shapes and legitimates new spatial configurations, with implications for urban analysis and policy approaches. The paper is based on the analysis of a database which gathers nearly 1000 strategies for Sustainable Urban Development funded by the EU between 2014-2020, and features a significant number of functional areas. The analysis reveals that the functional area approach does not only apply to metropolitan areas, big cities, or Functional Urban Areas, but can also be used for different types of territories, beyond metropolitan areas. It also underscores the need for more extensive research on what spatialities and territorial arrangements emerge from this process.

This paper explores the urbanization process under Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) definition considering Ecuador as case of study. Analyzing data from 1950 to 2010, we have identified 28 FUAs that confirm that urbanization has rapidly increased in Ecuador since 1962. Then, a slum index, which is constructed using a United Nations methodology, is applied to approach individuals’ wellbeing at dwelling level into FUAs for the period 1990 - 2010. We find that the greater improvement in terms of quality of dwelling takes place during the period 1990 - 2001 compared to 2001-2010.

We present a new approach to shape functional urban areas in terms of proximity. It uses travel time from urban cores to connect them and to determine its hinterland. It only needs information that nowadays it is available for most countries. In addition, we test this approach to a developing economy to show that it might be applied to the developing world. We compare it with commuting patterns, which is the common approach in literature. This might be a solution to identify functional areas in the developing world, where the characteristic is the lack of data to apply sophisticated methods. We also test internal migration and gravitational equation as proxies to define hinterland. We hope that this contribution helps to fill the gap at the time to work with developed and developing regions jointly, something impossible so far.