With the aim of identifying different perspectives for the future of territory – starting from the dimension of production in the context of urban sprawl – this PhD research intends opening a critical reflections on the dynamics of territorial polarization, specialization and marginalization underway in Europe. According to the last European Competitiveness Report drawn up by the European Commission, production is still to be considered as an engine of prosperity linked to the real economy and to the development of the territory; thus the need for a new re-industrialization program for Europe. In recent decades production has been one of the territorial elements exposed to more extensive changes in Europe, while at the same time it has become one of the elements least subject to reflection in terms of spatial construction and rationalisation of the territory. Production is today becoming incompatible with the common idea of European traditional city. In order to avoid the risk of a dualistic model of development, that opposes urban areas to productive and secondary territories, this article claims the need to include production in the debate on the structural specificity and potentialities of the European city-territory as one of its constituent elements.