This document presents an argumentative summary of the regional approach to development as an interpretation of the spatial dynamics of globalization, which makes the difference with the old category of regional development analysis that prevailed until the nineties in the 20th century. The goal is to recover the meaning of the spatial categories and the points of reference of globalization’s deployment with which the studies and exercises for the formulation of regional-urban planning methodologies are elaborated. The political economy and economic geography theories are used to demonstrate that what is regional is a spatial analysis category aimed at studying men’s experience and recognition of space, as a way to represent the trajectories and spatial configurations of processes and social relations, as well as the symbolic representations that shape the identity of a space, place or territory, understood as moments of the social production and presentation of both individual and collective action, or of social relations of production.