The article offers some reflections on the important changes that local development has experienced along the last decades. In particular, it emphasizes the strong and increasing presence of uncertainties and the complex character of the actual urban and territorial problems. All this must be confronted to the requirements of governability, the importance of institutions and social co-operation. The article underline some positive aspects of the innovative milieux as an example of creating «social capital», this concept particularly understood as «relationships capital». The final section of the article emphasizes the advantages of the urban strategic plans, built through very participative processes aiming to get cooperation agreements between the economic agents, the citizens and the local authorities. According to the author, the urban strategic plans are an excellent instrument leading to new forms of self-organization and better governability because it helps the city, the citizens and not only the local administration to be placed into the center of the decision processes and the local transformations.