This article reflects upon the research results about the relationship between local autonomy, interinstitutional coordination, and sectorial development in conurbation zones at the Colombo-Venezuelan and Argentine-Brazilian borders, which have grown apart from CAN and MERCOSUR regulatory frameworks. The research was centered in the study through interviews and surveys, the perception of managers and civil servants in chambers of commerce, public-private planning entities, and tourism boards in the areas under study. A close relationship between autonomy and local coordination by means of the support of the centralized State support within a framework of decentralization and state autonomy is identified. This relationship breaks under centralized and authoritarian State governments as it happens in Venezuela. Finally, when cross-border cooperation is achieved, it occurs in specific sectors, such a tourism, through interinstitutional coordination of complementary institutional models at the local and public-private levels.