Today there is broad acceptance of a transitive relationship between decentralization and local development, as if one "naturally" caused the other. However, much can be learned from returning to the beginning of the complex relationship between these two notions, which, far from originally being complementary, coexist in a tension inherent to each of them. It is also important to understand that each situation is to be read differently. To use a metaphor, the seed of local development will only grow if nourished by the appropriate social reality in which it is planted, whether or not this is in a context of decentralization.