This article deals with the emergence of the city-region in Sao Paulo (Brazil), called 'macrometropolis', and highlights some of the challenges facing this new territorial or spatial configuration in terms of globalisation and governance. It also stresses the productive changes that gave rise to it and sheds light on the constituent dynamics of the macrometropolis at different scales. The article affirms that metropolitan problems can no longer be interpreted without taking into account the new determinants of the macrometropolis of Sao Paulo, which implies considering the interaction of the metropolis with other urban centres bearing social, economic and environmental singularities.