Intermediary or medium-sized cities can play an important role in the development of balanced national urban systems. Due to its small size and face to face social interaction, an intermediary city can be the ideal site for good governance and sustainable development, providing services to the surrounding region and thus mitigating the push factor that leads to the emergence of ungovernable and bursting-at-the-seams megacities. This was the assumption that led to an international action research project initiated by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSFIFNRS) under its National Research Programme on Environment, in three cities of the Southern countries.