This article seeks to answer the question asked in the title: no easy task, as we shall see. To this end, it will be necessary, firstly, to clarify what "globalization" means in this context; secondly, to identify the relations between the globalization process and local areas: a matter which some people consider to be ambiguous or (falsely); solved through the "death" of the local dimension and of geography in general; thirdly, to determine whether something like "local development" belongs in the logic of globalization, clarifying in the process the different interpretations made of this concept, and finally, to examine the contributions (if any); made by the universities and local development itself to globalization, to the functioning of supranational blocs (such as MERCOSUR, for example);, to competitiveness, and to development itself.