The present configuration and functionality of the World is the outcome of two apparently contradictory type of processes: globalization, based on common principles and actions, and fragmentation underlain by ethnical, cultural or economic considerations. The specific features of an increasingly more obvious process of globalization over the past few decades underscore the dominant role played by cities and urban systems, generally. For all the seemingly reduced interdependence of connection between globalization processes and the settlement systems, the issue is highly topical because it is...