The complexity of social and productive factors has changed the perspectives of urban centers.Although the first forms of territorial organization arose from human settlements and their need for subsistence within the special conditions provided by geography, in the last thirty years, this strategy does not seem enough to generate the permanence of populations and their development.Girardot, located on the banks of the Magdalena River, Colombia, was a reference of economic progress, being the second most important city in the country's center in the first half of the twentieth century.The railroad, aviation, and the Magdalena River consolidated the city as the epicenter of local development.Despite having a strategic infrastructure of services, the new social dynamics derived from using the river brought a phenomenon of degradation, isolating the city from progress.This condition opens a perspective to delimit adequate management mechanisms, understanding that rivers were essential for consolidating large urban centers.The research addresses functionality, understood from the continuity of projects and plans in charge of governmental entities, which affect the connectivity of these cities, promoting a vision of more sustainable ecosystems.