Since the first half of the 20th century, processes of large increase and expansion have been going on in urban areas of several cities around the world. As a result, a new model of a scattered and diffuse city is already extended to planetary scale. Is makes it more and more difficult to define what is urban and what is rural, as well as to clearly delimitate the physical and socio-economic boundaries separating the former from the latter. In that context, peri-urban territories - which are spaces with hybrid rural-urban characteristics - gain more and more importance as spaces whose socio-economic situation changes and subsequent tendencies to development, stagnation or decline we need to know. Above all, because of the possibility of articulating proper policies to regulate and/or condition such situation, changes and tendencies, in order to be able to contribute to improve life quality for the population that dwells in peri-urban territories depends to a very large extent on such awareness. Accordingly, the purpose of the present article is to put forward a methodological proposal based on a system of indicators aimed at measuring the degree of development, stagnation or decline of such territories, as well as the changes and tendencies they have been experiencing under current circumstances of their increasing participation within global dynamics.
peri-urban territories; blurred limits; socio-economic situation; change processes; social indicators and methodology for their analysis