In collaboration with the Portuguese Association of Urban Planners, the municipalities of Oporto and Sintra, and the Institute of Public Management and Administration, the Serra Henriques Foundation has carried-out two seminars dedicated to Territorial Plans and the Ibero-American Congress of Urban Planning. Following these events, Carta de Sintra and the book Sociedade e Território were published.

The currentness of the matter and the dimension of this problem summon the committed participation of the Municipalities, the State, the financial institutions, the construction or real estate companies, and the urban planners, in the search for solutions. Only interdisciplinary study and reflection will contribute to the development of theoretical and practical knowledge on Urban Planning, indispensable to the creation of an harmonious socio-territorial relationship, financially safe and economically sustainable.

The instruments of territorial planning and management will be increasingly more determinant of the value of the land, by interfering in the configuration of the uses of the land and the parametrization of the indexes. The plans whether constrain the possibilities of urbanization and construction or boost them, or even impose its substantiation. The territory's economy develops, therefore, in a complex system of laws, directives and regulations that deserve attentive reading and interpretation, and there should prevail the principles of reason and urban aesthetics.