How are metropolitan regions governed? What makes some regions more effective than others in managing policies that cross local jurisdictional boundaries? Political coordination among municipal governments is necessary to attract investment, rapid and efficient public transit systems, and to sustain cultural infrastructure in metropolitan regions. In this era of fragmented authority, local governments alone rarely possess the capacity to address these policy issues alone. This book explores the sources and barriers to cooperation and metropolitan policy making. It combines different streams of scholarship on regional governance to explain how and why metropolitan partnerships emerge and flourish in some places and fail to in others. It systematically tests this theory in the Frankfurt and Rhein-Neckar regions of Germany and the Toronto and Waterloo regions in Canada. Discovering that existing theories of metropolitan collective action based on institutions and opportunities are inconsistent, the author proposes a new theory of "civic capital", which argues that civic engagement and leadership at the regional scale can be important catalysts to metropolitan cooperation. The extent to which the actors hold a shared image of the metropolis and engage at that scale strongly influences the degree to which local authorities will be willing and able to coordinate policies for the collective development of the region. Metropolitan Governance and Policy will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative urban and metropolitan governance and sociology.

This book explores the relationship between the arrangements for metropolitan decision-making and the co-ordination of spatial policy and compares approaches across a wide range of European Cities.

This book questions how policies for the metropolis become Europeanised. The book analyses how spatial concepts and political ideas permeate the European multi-level system. Through an interpretive comparison of five contexts, the book provides an overview of the European orientation tracing two interdependent developments. First, the book examines references to ‘Europe’ in national and subnational policies. In French and German policies, metropolitan regions are increasingly framed as being central not only for inter-municipal coordination, but also as nodes within the European space. Moreover, Europeanised metropolitan regions such as Lyon and Stuttgart develop European strategies. The second development shows how metropolitan regions appear as actors and issues in the European policy arena, contributing to a tentative and implicit metropolitan dimension. This multi-scalar analysis is of interest for scholars and practitioners specialised in metropolitan regions, European urban and regional policies, geography and related areas.

In Mexico City, as in many other large cities worldwide, contemporary modes of urban governance have overwhelmingly benefited affluent populations and widened social inequalities. Disinvestment from social housing and rent-seeking developments by real estate companies and land speculators have resulted in the displacement of low-income populations to the urban periphery. Public social spaces have been eliminated to make way for luxury apartments and business interests. Low-income neighbourhoods are often stigmatized by dominant social forces to justify their demolition. The urban poor have however negotiated and resisted these developments in a range of ways. This text explores these urban dynamics in Mexico City and beyond, looking at the material and symbolic mechanisms through which urban marginality is produced and contested. It seeks to understand how things might be otherwise, how the city might be geared towards more inclusive forms of belonging and citizenship.

This report is thus intended as “food for thought” for national, sub-national and municipal governments as they seek to address their economic and environmental challenges through the development and implementation of spatial strategies in pursuit of Green Growth objectives.

A fresh examination of the relationship between two key issues in the on-going debate on urban governance - leadership and community involvement. It explores the nature of the interaction between community involvement and political leadership in modern local governance by drawing on empirical data gathered from case-studies concerning cities in England, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, and Sweden. It presents both a country specific and cross-cutting analysis of the contributions that communities and leaders can make to more effective local governance. These country specific chapters are complemented by thematic, comparative chapters addressing alternative forms of community involvement, types and styles of leadership, multi-level governance, institutional restrictions and opportunities for leadership and involvement, institutional conditions underpinning leadership and involvement, and political culture in cities. This up-to-date survey of trends and developments in local governance moves the debate forward by analysing modern governance with reference to theories related to institutional theory, legitimation, and the way urban leadership and community involvement compliment one another. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of politics and urban governance, and to all those concerned with questions of local governance and democracy.

There is little question today that processes of globalization affect national and local economies, governance processes, and conditions for economic competitiveness in the major urban regions of the world. In most liberal-democratic countries, these processes are occurring according to a rationale which attempts to combine strategies of state-supported development with increasing local-regional governmental decentralization and autonomy. Against this background, the issue of metropolitan development is being redefined worldwide, along with its institutional frameworks, modes of governance, policy instruments, and spatial planning strategies. The overarching assumption of this volume is that ‘metropolitan space’, far from being consolidated as a policy object, is currently being redefined and in some instances ‘constructed’ and contested as a scale, through a variety of policy practices related to spatial-economic development objectives. Through case studies drawn from across four continents, the authors reveal a range of interesting cross-national commonalities concerning the power that state actors, situated at various spatial scales, exert as agents in these processes. This volume interrogates key research issues raised by these developments, and is intended as a contribution to the establishment of a globally comparative analysis of the construction of metropolitan spaces and scales under conditions of globalization and neoliberalization.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Reporting on the innovative, transdisciplinary research on sustainable urbanisation undertaken by Mistra Urban Futures, a highly influential research centre based in Sweden (2010-19), this book builds on the Policy Press title Rethinking Sustainable Cities to make a significant contribution to evolving theory about comparative urban research. Highlighting important methodological experiences from across a variety of diverse contexts in Africa and Europe, this book surveys key experiences and summarises lessons learned from the Mistra Urban Futures' global research platforms. It demonstrates best practice for developing and deploying different forms of transdisciplinary co-production, covering topics including neighbourhood transformation and housing justice, sustainable urban and transport development, urban food security and cultural heritage.

Throughout the world more policy making and the politics that shape it take place in the urban regions where most people live. This book draws on eleven case studies of similar but disparate urban regions in France, Germany and the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. It documents the growth of this urban governance and develops a pioneering analysis of its causes and consequences. It traces the origins to the expansion and devolution of policy making, to local business mobilization and institutional interests in high-tech and service activities, and the incorporation of local social movements. Nation-states shape the possibilities for this urban governance, but operate increasingly as infrastructures for local initiatives. Where urban governance has succeeded in combining environmental quality and social inclusion with local prosperity, local officials have built on supportive infrastructures from higher levels, the local economy, civil society, and favourable positions in the global economy.

The aim of this book is to investigate contemporary processes of metropolitan change and approaches to planning and governing metropolitan regions. To do so, it focuses on four central tenets of metropolitan change in terms of planning and governance: institutional approaches, policy mobilities, spatial imaginaries, and planning styles. The book’s main contribution lies in providing readers with a new conceptual and analytical framework for researching contemporary dynamics in metropolitan regions. It will chiefly benefit researchers and students in planning, urban studies, policy and governance studies, especially those interested in metropolitan regions. The relentless pace of urban change in globalization poses fundamental questions about how to best plan and govern 21st-century metropolitan regions. The problem for metropolitan regions—especially for those with policy and decision-making responsibilities—is a growing recognition that these spaces are typically reliant on inadequate urban-economic infrastructure and fragmented planning and governance arrangements. Moreover, as the demand for more ‘appropriate’—i.e., more flexible, networked and smart—forms of planning and governance increases, new expressions of territorial cooperation and conflict are emerging around issues and agendas of (de-)growth, infrastructure expansion, and the collective provision of services.