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To complement Zack Taylor’s paper on Regionalism from Above: Metro Governance in Canada, the journal commissioned four short ‘perspectives’ from Commonwealth countries grappling with similar issues – Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa. The purpose was not in any way to ‘review’ Taylor’s work, but rather to establish a broader picture of issues and trends in metropolitan governance, and to identify common threads. The perspectives from Australia, England and South Africa focus on recent developments and governance issues in particular metropolitan areas. These are respectively the fast-growing outer metropolitan sub-region of Western Sydney; the long-established conurbation of Greater Manchester; and the vast, emerging ‘multi-nodal sprawl’ of South Africa’s Gauteng City Region, centred on Johannesburg. The New Zealand perspective takes a different approach, exploring the implications of shifts in national policy towards a focus on wellbeing and the quality of life in communities, with significant implications for the future of local government and the way metropolitan areas are governed. Nevertheless, all four perspectives reveal similar underlying concerns that metropolitan governance frameworks and practices often struggle to keep pace with global trends, urban growth, community needs and national priorities. Effective inter-government relations are crucial, but local governments may not be at the table, or their views may be largely ignored. The governance of metropolitan regions becomes increasingly fraught, a battleground between the forces of devolution and centralisation. How can meaningful and effective collaborative governance be realised? Who should take the lead and do we have the right tools and skills? In such a complex and fluid environment, can we realistically expect anything more than brief periods of clarity and consensus that at least enable agreement on the next few steps?

In the now thirty-year-long history of the construction of a formal dimension of the metropolisation process in Italy, the dynamics of administrative reorganisation triggered by Law 56/2014 saw the emergence of the metropolitan city as an element of rupture in the relations between territorial levels. These dynamics are explored through the Roman case, in which the process of institutionalisation of the metropolitan city presents numerous criticalities with respect to the central city’s value as capital, the organisational structure within the metropolitan territory, the relationship with the Latium Region and the relationship with the State regarding European programming.

International audience; The chapter considers the case of the French city of Lyon, from which a distinctive narrative emerged centred on public-private interactions and the role of the business community in driving prosperity. We understand urban narratives as comprising a mix of material and constructed approaches; the chapter pursues the social construction of the entrepreneurial city by studying the role of organisational metaphors - such as the Spirit of Enterprise and the Pack - as providing a form of legitimisation of public-private dynamics in the Greater Lyon area. The chapter investigates the 'private government' formed between political and business elites over a period of two decades or so. It seeks out a coherent narrative to accompany the exercise of the 'private government' that has steered the fortunes of the city in the economic domain. The main paradox is expressed as follows: the relationship is peppered by symbols, practices and metaphors, but it is a highly confidential, non-transparent regime, ruled by a set of shared understandings and assumptions that are taken as self-evident, not requiring massive investment in an urban narrative.

Metropolitan governance and planning increasingly are understood as essential in managing urban growth and fostering a sustainable and climate-friendly metropolitan development. Lately, a contractual turn can be observed in metropolitan governance, in which traditional coordination tools are supplemented by contractual management tools between governmental layers and sectors. This article analyses two cases of metropolitan contractual management agreements, one in the Oslo region and one in the Gothenburg region. The article finds that both agreements build on regional strategies and plans to commit national authorities to invest in infrastructure in these metropolitan areas. The Oslo agreement has more layers than the Gothenburg case, in trying to align national, regional and local authorities’ efforts in both land use and mobility politics. The agreements require advanced leadership competence from the core-city, curbing centre-periphery tensions in metropolitan areas and building local alliances to pressure national authorities in agreement negotiations. We argue that this requires a co-creational leadership role, which, in a multilevel governance setting, must be extended to include dimensions such as distributional balance sensitivity, delineation sensitivity and upward pressure. The article is based on the empirical studies in the research project ‘Governing the green shift in Oslo, Gothenburg, Copenhagen and Cape Town’ (GreenGov), financed by the Norwegian Research Council [grant number 270668].

Cet article interroge la construction territoriale d’un problème public, à partir du cas du Grand Paris. Il analyse la façon dont un problème de gouvernance métropolitaine, c’est-à-dire de la coopération entre acteurs publics, émerge de façon bottom-up par les élus locaux, avant d’être redéfini par l’État central dans une perspective top-down. Le cas du Grand Paris révèle la prégnance du clivage centre-périphérie avec la difficulté de l’État central à décentraliser des compétences d’aménagement de sa région capitale, et la centralité de la variable institutionnelle dans la construction du problème public., Through the analysis of how a metropolitan governance issue, under the dynamics of public stakeholders, is addressed from the bottom up by local representatives and then redefined from a top-down perspective by the central State, this paper examines the territorial construction of a public problem in the Greater Paris area. The case of the Greater Paris area reveals deep rifts between the city centre and the outskirts with the central State’s difficulty to decentralize development authorities in the capital region, as well as the centrality of the institutional variable in the construction of the public problem.

Resumo Este artigo analisa como a dinâmica política de representação pode se traduzir em obstáculos para a mobilização de atores políticos do Legislativo em torno de uma agenda metropolitana. Seu objetivo é verificar a representatividade dos deputados de base metropolitana na Assembleia Legislativa de São Paulo e caracterizar a disputa eleitoral nos municípios paulistas a partir de dois indicadores: um de concentração (número efetivo de candidatos) e um de competitividade (índice T). Os resultados apontam que os deputados metropolitanos paulistas não são sub-representados na Assembleia e a disputa eleitoral nos municípios metropolitanos tende a ser menos concentrada, com um “efeito metrópole” sobre a concentração da disputa, mas não necessariamente mais competitiva. Abstract This article analyzes how the dynamic of representation policy can translate into obstacles for the mobilization of the Legislative political actors around a metropolitan agenda. The objective is to analyze the representativeness of metropolitan – based deputies in the Legislative Assembly of the State of São Paulo – and to characterize the electoral dispute in the state municipalities, which will be characterized by two different indicators: a concentration of the dispute (effective number of candidates) and an electoral competitiveness index (T index). The results show that the metropolitan deputies of São Paulo are not underrepresented in the Assembly and the electoral dispute in metropolitan municipalities tends to be less concentrated, with a “metropolis effect” on the concentration of the dispute, but not necessarily more competitive. Resumen Este artículo analiza cómo la dinámica política de representación puede traducirse en obstáculos para la movilización de los actores políticos del Legislativo en torno a una agenda metropolitana. El objetivo es analizar la representatividad de los diputados de base metropolitana en la Asamblea Legislativa de São Paulo y caracterizar la disputa electoral en los municipios paulistas, que se caracterizará a partir de dos diferentes indicadores: un de concentración (número efectivo de candidatos) y un de competitividad (índice T). Los resultados apuntan que los diputados metropolitanos paulistas no son subrepresentados en la Asamblea y la disputa electoral en los municipios metropolitanos tiende a ser menos concentrada, con un “efecto metrópoli” sobre la concentración de la disputa, pero no necesariamente más competitiva. Résumé Cet article analyse comment la dynamique de la politique de représentation peut se traduire par des obstacles à la mobilisation des acteurs politiques législatifs autour d'un agenda métropolitain. L’objectif de cet article est d’analyser la représentativité des députés métropolitains à l’Assemblée législative de l’État de São Paulo et de caractériser le dispute électoral dans les municipalités de l’etát, qui sera caractérisé par deux indicateurs différents: un de concentration (nombre effectif de candidats) et un de compétitivité (indice T). Les résultats montrent que les députés métropolitains de São Paulo ne sont pas sous-représentés dans l’Assemblée et que les élections dans les municipalités métropolitaines ont tendance à être moins concentrées, avec un “effet de métropole” sur la concentration de la dispute, mais pas nécessairement plus compétitives.

In recent decades the challenges of globalisation, European integration and strengthened regionalisation have led to a reassessment of metropolitan regions. In Germany, the guiding principles issued by the Conference of Ministers for Spatial Planning in 2006 provided an occasion on which to rethink the role of border regions in the context of the discourse on metropolises. The metropolitan potential of border regions is far from fully exploited. This is particularly true in relation to cross-border spatial development. The concept of metropolitan border regions could be a promising way of intensifying cross-border cooperation and territorial integration. A precondition for this is that metropolisation strategies are proactively pursued using key measures and that existing structures of cooperation are further developed towards 'metropolitan' governance.

Recent research has identified the potential of the metropolitan scale, and indeed metropolitan bodies, in achieving greater coordination and more effective land-use management. In this paper, we have undertaken a systematic scoping review of the English-language literature (2014–2019) on metropolitanisation and metropolitan governance, with a view to understanding the potential relationship with more sustainable land management. Our scoping review identified several dominant trends within current research on metropolitanisation and metropolitan governance illustrating the complexity between sustainable land management and issues of territorial politics, resourcing, and power relations. The centrality of collaborative working relationships in supporting sustainable land management is identified, yet collaboration and effective metropolitan scale governance is not always an easy task or readily implemented. The paper identifies a series of challenges and concludes that while there is general consensus that the metropolitan arena may be an appropriate scale through which to support more sustainable land management, there is no agreement on the mechanisms to enable this. Steering and more strongly directing metropolitanisation processes through either formal metropolitan governance structures or other tools could provide a potential approach but will require significant adaptation in power and funding structures.

We introduce evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States that lends support to future political efforts to include multi-county metropolitan areas as an additional and critical institutional layer&mdash, over and above municipalities, countries, states, or the federal government&mdash, for the effective management of present and future pandemics. Multi-county metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) accommodated 73% of the U.S. population and, as of 27 September 2020, they were home to 78% of reported cases of Covid-19 and 82% of reported deaths. The rationale for a renewed focus on these spatial units is that they are found to be densely interconnected yet easily identifiable locales for the spread of pandemics and, therefore, for their proper management as well. The paper uses available data on cases and deaths in U.S. counties as of 27 September 2020 to lend statistical support to four hypotheses: (1) The Onset Hypothesis: The onset of Covid-19 cases and deaths commenced earlier in multi-county metropolitan areas than in small-city counties or rural counties, (2) The Peak Hypothesis: The current peak of Covid-19 cases and deaths occurred earlier in multi-county metropolitan areas, (3) The Scaling Hypothesis: Multi-county metropolitan areas had more than their shares of Covid-19 cases and deaths than their shares in the population, and (4) The Neighbor Hypothesis: Levels of Covid-19 cases and deaths in counties within multi-county metropolitan areas were more strongly related to respective levels in their neighboring counties than small-city counties or rural counties. The reported statistical results demonstrate the value of adopting a metropolitan perspective on pandemics and working to empower effective institutional arrangements at the metropolitan level for managing the present and future pandemics.

S’appuyant sur des matériaux d’enquête centrés sur la Métropole européenne de Lille (MEL) et sa médiatisation, cet article vise à comprendre comment se construisent et s’entretiennent les mécanismes de clôture d’une institution politique sur elle-même, en insistant sur la conjonction de deux phénomènes relatifs à la publicité : la discrétion des élus quant aux processus délibératifs et décisionnels de la MEL renforce son invisibilité et, en retour, l’imperméabilité de ces mêmes élus vis-à-vis de revendications et de contestations externes qui peinent à les atteindre. Après avoir analysé l’institutionnalisation d’un « ordre coalitionnel » fondé sur le refus de toute forme de politisation et d’extraversion des conflits internes, l’article montre, d’une part, comment les rares et éphémères moments de controverses émergent presque toujours depuis l’extérieur de l’institution et, d’autre part, que même la publicisation d’affaires de corruption impliquant l’exécutif communautaire n’affecte en rien les échanges collusifs en matière de distribution des postes et des ressources budgétaires. Au-delà de ce seul cas, l’article permet d’appréhender quelques-uns des ressorts de la « dé-démocratisation » des institutions politiques locales en France., Based on investigative material focused on the Métropole européenne de Lille (MEL) and its media coverage, this article aims to understand how the mechanisms of closure of a political institution are constructed and maintained, by insisting on the conjunction of two phenomena related to publicity: the discretion of elected officials regarding the deliberative and decision-making processes of the MEL reinforces its invisibility and, in return, the impermeability of these same elected officials vis-à-vis external claims and contestations. After analyzing the institutionalization of a “coalition order” based on the rejection of all forms of politicization and the extroversion of internal conflicts, we will show, on the one hand, how the rare and ephemeral moments of controversy always emerge from outside the institution and, on the other hand, that even the publicizing of cases of corruption involving the executive of the MEL does not affect the collusive exchanges in terms of the distribution of posts and budgetary resources. Beyond this case study, the intertwined processes of “un-democratization” of local political institutions in France can be observed.

The growing concentration of production and population in capital cities in Europe is accompanied by metropolitan governance reform with two policy objectives in mind. Firstly, capital cities are promoted as ‘national champions’ in the context of global territorial competition. Secondly, metropolitan regions are characterised by recurrent crises of ‘governability’ as economic, social, environmental and infrastructural interdependencies escape existing jurisdictional scales. However, this process is highly uneven, reflecting the ways in which cities are embedded in their national contexts. Drawing from the literature on varieties of capitalism, and in particular O’Riain’s perspective on the Irish case, we suggest that in an era when cities are claimed to be acting as ‘national champions’, territorial politics need to be more strongly foregrounded in these discussions. Through an in-depth qualitative case-study of Dublin (Ireland), we argue that while government power may be strongly centralised in the city of Dublin, the spatial entity of Dublin is relatively powerless. Despite a number of recommendations since the 1970s, there has been little will or action to meaningfully devolve power to the city-regional level in any way, contrary to comparative European experiences. The paper illustrates how a central state stranglehold over the Dublin metropolitan area is hampering the efficient governance and sustainable development of the city. These governance constraints at the sub-national level with significant planning implications indicate a reluctance to engage with the metropolitan as a particular territorial scale in Ireland – and a profound fixity in the architecture of the state. We term this metro-phobia. UCD Visiting Professorship scheme

El presente artículo se propone realizar una sistematización histórica de la trayectoria del proyecto para la instalación del Mercado Central de Buenos Aires (1960-1984), que definió fuertemente el funcionamiento del centro de comercialización mayorista alimentario más importante del país, desde su inauguración en 1984 a 2019. La gobernanza del abastecimiento de alimentos para el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires demanda amplios consensos entre los actores sectoriales y los distintos niveles de gobierno que hasta la fecha no han podido consolidarse en un plan para aprovechar, ampliar a otros sectores alimentarios e impulsar esta gran obra de infraestructura que es el Mercado Central., This article proposes a historical review of the trajectory of the project for the installation of the Central Market of Buenos Aires (1960-1984), which strongly defined the operation of the most relevant wholesale food market in the country, from its inauguration in 1984 until 2019. The governance of the Metropolitan Area of ​​Buenos Aires food supply requires broad consensus between the sectoral actors and the different levels of government. Up to date, none of them were able to establish an agreed plan to leverage, include other food sectors and impulse this great infrastructure that is the Central Market., Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales

Studies on urban sustainability policy often analyse what it is, could or should be in terms of contents, objectives and rationale. Often neglected, however, is what sustainability discourse actually "does". For this article, we explored the function of sustainability discourse in a collaborative metropolitan governance process of 1998-2014 that resulted in an infrastructural strategy aiming for "sustainable growth" in the Gothenburg Metropolitan Area (GMA). We asked why sustainability had become a hegemonic concept in urban politics despite the paradoxical decoupling of objectives, outputs and outcomes from environmental protection and social equity in policy achievement. We argue that sustainability works as a vehicular idea that brings significant value to fragile governance arenas by functioning as a linguistic political mechanism with no essence other than the capability to attract positive affections for any coalition of actors with the power to mobilise others. In the GMA, sustainability served as a cohesive and mobilising discourse empowering a coalition of technoeconomic experts to "get things done" and make an unruly city region governable enough to develop infrastructure perceived as crucial for the advancement of economic-growth projects. QC 20170706

Este trabajo desarrollo un análisis de la viabilidad de la gobernación metropolitana en México. Por encima de los planteamientos teóricos enmateria de coordinación y gobernanza, aparecen limitantes de facto que hacen imposible la gobernación metropolitana. La argumentación se basa en la dificultad de alinear intereses, nosólo entre las unidades territoriales, sino también entre las agendas políticas de los actores que participan. El planteamiento teórico se contrasta con la construcción de una institucionalidad metropolitana en Guadalajara. La conclusión es que se requiere de un planteamiento que garantice la obligatoriedad de la coordinación y subordine los intereses de los funcionarios al interés general metropolitano. This work develops a feasibility analysis of the metropolitan governance in Mexico. Above the theoretical approaches in the field of coordination and governance, there are de facto limitations that make metropolitan governance impossible. The argument is based on the difficulty of aligning interests, not only between the territorial units, but also between the political agendas of the actors involved. The theoretical approach is contrasted with the construction of metropolitan institutions in Guadalajara. The conclusion is that it is required an approach to ensure the coordination obligation and subordinate the interests of civil servants to the general metropolitan interest.

The concept of transit-oriented development (TOD) has now become a fixture in planning documents of metropolitan areas around the world. Looking at the Greater Montreal area, this article discuss the recontextualisation of the (abstract) idea of TOD and the specific ways in which it has been defined, implemented and used by local and metropolitan actors. Set up into a centerpiece of the dominant discourse in metropolitan planning, the TOD also serves as a mean of negotiation and legitimization for local elected officials in a context of multi-layered governance., Le concept d’aménagement axé sur le transport en commun (AATC ou TOD) est maintenant une figure majeure de la planification métropolitaine à travers le monde. En posant un regard sur la région métropolitaine de Montréal, cet article met en lumière la re-contextualisation de la notion (abstraite) de TOD, ainsi que les façons précises dont la notion a été définie, mise en œuvre et utilisée par les acteurs locaux et métropolitains. Le TOD, érigé en discours hégémonique par l’organisme de gouvernance métropolitaine, sert aussi d’outil de légitimation et de négociation pour les élus locaux, dans un contexte de gouvernance multi-niveau.

Knapp W. and Schmitt P. Discourse on ‘metropolitan driving forces’ and ‘uneven development’: Germany and the RhineRuhr conurbation, Regional Studies. This paper provides a contribution to the debate on re-scaling and uneven development from the point of view of the governance of spatial development. Its main purpose is not to advance new theoretical perspectives on ‘re-scaling’ and ‘uneven development’, but rather to reflect on those notions in the context of the actual reworking of territorial space in Germany, and the attempts to establish a regime of metropolitan regions as ‘driving forces’ of growth and international competitiveness. The paper examines Germany's inherited and newly emerging polycentric landscape of metropolitan regions, and the distinct division of metropolitan functions that have developed among them. More specifically, it discusses the re-scaling process within Germany's biggest conurbation, RhineRuhr, and the obvious difficulties faced in creating metropolitan governance structures...

International audience; In this paper we illustrate the socio-economic dynamics of peri-urban zones of Indian Metropolitan cities, which are at the heart of the current urban liberalisation. For this, we study the impact of the water purchasing agreement the Metropolitan water board signed with some farmers of peri-urban areas of Chennai (formerly Madras). Acute water shortage in Chennai and subsequent recourse to outer-bound underground water put the peri-urban as well as rural areas under increasing polarisation by the city, and achieved a systemic integration with it: as a consequence, the local regime of access of water radically changes in peripheral rural areas, which serves as our entry point. We contextualise some specifics of peri-urban areas in India, and identify four issues of urban economic governance or urban functions on which peri-urban areas can particularly shed light. Then we briefly recall the water scenario in Chennai and describe the "tripartite agreement". We then analyse the changes in agricultural practices and land-use patterns, the related income divergence, and alteration of socio-economic structure. Then we show that extraction of groundwater from agricultural fields, to be sold to the CMWSSB, in charge of the city water supply, de facto creates private property rights for the farmers who can extract and sell water.

Key Points: London local government has taken a 33 per cent real terms cut in service funding from central government between 2009/10 and 2013/14. Councils have been making strenuous efforts to make large savings without cutting front line services, and to protect services for those who need them most. Most savings have come through efficiencies, the sorts of savings which Councils have argued are neither detrimental to, nor noticeable at, the frontline. However, Councils have, reluctantly, had to reduce their own role in the provision of discretionary services. More of these services are being delivered by voluntary and community sector partners, so the landscape of local service provision has seen some change. The need for Councils to pare their own provision back to statutory services, increasingly targeting those most in need, may, ultimately, result in less local variation rather than more. In this the cuts could be running counter to the promotion of the localism agenda. A focus on the most in need, seen in greater targeting of services, could also further fuel rising demand, as lower level need goes unaddressed. Council officers and Members are concerned that the 'limits of efficiency' have been reached, and there is little scope for further large-scale savings without significant effects on frontline services.

Key Points: London local government has taken a 33 per cent real terms cut in service funding from central government between 2009/10 and 2013/14. Councils have been making strenuous efforts to make large savings without cutting front line services, and to protect services for those who need them most. Most savings have come through efficiencies, the sorts of savings which Councils have argued are neither detrimental to, nor noticeable at, the frontline. However, Councils have, reluctantly, had to reduce their own role in the provision of discretionary services. More of these services are being delivered by voluntary and community sector partners, so the landscape of local service provision has seen some change. The need for Councils to pare their own provision back to statutory services, increasingly targeting those most in need, may, ultimately, result in less local variation rather than more. In this the cuts could be running counter to the promotion of the localism agenda. A focus on the most in need, seen in greater targeting of services, could also further fuel rising demand, as lower level need goes unaddressed. Council officers and Members are concerned that the 'limits of efficiency' have been reached, and there is little scope for further large-scale savings without significant effects on frontline services.

Consultable sur Internet : http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3344717; Metropolitan areas have become places where some of the major issues and stakes for the government of our societies are taking place (social and territorial inequalities, economic development, the question of ethnical and cultural diversity, environmental preservation, etc.). However, in spite of their relevance as spaces to address these issues, metropolitan areas have great difficulties to become political territories, that is to reach a sufficient political agency (act as collective actor) to produce adequate policies to deal with these issues and to produce collective strategies to orient their future development. To substantiate this statement,... (Leer más) the article will first focus on the major obstacles which prevent metropolitan areas to reach agency and which are common to most of European countries: the resistance of the State to grant these territories with adequate competences and resources in the decentralization process and its preference towards the strengthening of existing governmental tiers; the opposition of these governmental tiers along with the lack of support from civil society (economic actors and the inhabitants). In a second section, the article will present the various experiences launched in the last decade to alleviate these obstacles. Focusing on the pacification of power relations at the metropolitan level through metropolitan conferences and metropolitan charters and pacts and on procedural policies such as strategic planning, the author estimates that these experiences do not seem to offer the potentialities to reduce political conflicts between actors and concludes with a pessimist tone on the unlikely governability of metropolitan areas.; Las áreas metropolitanas se han convertido en lugares en los que tienen lugar algunos de los mayores desafíos para el gobierno de nuestras sociedades (desigualdades sociales y territoriales, desarrollo económico, la diversidad étnica y cultural, la preservación del medio ambiente, etc.). Sin embargo, a pesar de su relevancia como espacios para el tratamiento de estos problemas, las áreas metropolitanas tienen grandes dificultades para transformarse en territorios políticos, es decir, para alcanzar un nivel de agente político suficiente (como actor colectivo) para producir políticas adecuadas que aborden estos problemas y produzcan estrategias... (Leer más) colectivas que orienten su desarrollo futuro. Para tratar este tema, este artículo se centrará en primer lugar en los principales obstáculos que les impiden alcanzar el nivel de actor político, que son comunes a la mayoría de los países europeos: la resistencia del Estado a otorgar a estos territorios las funciones y recursos adecuados en el proceso de descentralización y su preferencia por el reforzamiento de los niveles de gobierno existentes; la oposición de estos niveles de gobierno y la falta de apoyo de la sociedad civil (actores económicos y población). En un segundo apartado, este artículo presentará diferentes experiencias que han tenido lugar en la última década para superar estos obstáculos. Centrándose en la pacificación de las relaciones de poder a nivel metropolitano mediante conferencias, cartas y pactos metropolitanos y políticas procedimentales como la planificación estratégica, el autor considera que estas experiencias no parecen ofrecer potencialidades para la reducción del conflicto político entre actores y concluye con un tono pesimista sobre la gobernabilidad de las áreas metropolitanas.

In the past few years, widespread frustration with sprawling development patterns has precipitated an explosion in innovative thinking and action across the United States. This new thinking ¿ generally labeled as ¿smart growth¿ ¿ contends that the shape and quality of metropolitan growth in America are no longer desirable or sustainable. It argues that metropolitan areas could grow in radically different ways if major government policies on land use, infrastructure and taxation were overhauled. This essay discusses the current state of smart growth and metropolitan thinking in the United States. It outlines the demographic, market and development trends that are affecting metropolitan areas and the consequences of these trends for central cities, older suburbs, newer communities and low-income and minority families. It describes how current government policies facilitate the excessive decentralization of people and jobs and how smart growth reforms are being enacted, particularly at the state level, to shape new, more urban-friendly, growth patterns. It concludes by identifying the major challenges that smart growth needs to address if it is going to succeed in shaping new, sustainable metropolitan communities.

This article develops an explanation for the emergence of metropolitan governance in the Amsterdam metropolitan region. A coevolutionary framework is deployed to analyze how the governance system developed between 1982 and 2009. Data was gathered from 43 policy docu- ments, over 150 newspaper articles and 14 semi-structured interviews. The analysis focuses on the workings of selection pressures and the adaptive processes. It shows that metropolitan gov- ernance evolves in a punctuated fashion when fitness with the environment is lost and when the governance system’s ability to absorb selection pressures has eroded., Complexity, Governance & Networks, Vol 1, No 2 (2014)

This monograph examines whether integrated administration and planning of metropolitan regions is desirable or feasible. Particular attention is paid to issues arising from the management of rapid population growth. Distinctions are drawn between the characteristics of single and two-tier authorities, and directly and indirectly elected ones as means to achieve effective and responsive local and metropolitan government. The experiences of five New World metropolitan regions are reviewed. Two, Greater Toronto and Vancouver, are Canadian; two, Greater Seattle and Metropolitan Portland, are in the north west USA; and one, the Auckland Region, is in Australasia. Chapter 1 discusses significant problems associated with rapid metropolitan growth and describes the study areas. Chapter 2 examines issues of population growth management and metropolitan form and access. Chapter 3 considers the extent to which these metropolitan governments have been able to balance and harmonize the needs for healthy physical and prosperous economic environments. Chapters 4 and 5 assess the study areas' performance in social policy and administrative organization. The concluding chapter draws together earlier material to produce proposals designed to meet the needs of the increasingly metropolitan-based life of the twenty first century for integrated demographic, spatial, environmental, economic and social planning and administration.

IntroductionThe main objective of this study is to demonstrate the difficulties related to the management of the areas tightly connected to cities in case of the states in the transition process from an excessively centralised economy to the market economy. These spaces are in a structural-functional disorder phase, with numerous distortions generated by delays within the institutional construction, as well as the lack of a culture of inter-communal cooperation. The management model of these areas specific to societies in transition, which suddenly changed their political and socio-economic regime, may complete the general management models of the metropolitan areas in a lineal change.When a culture of inter-communal cooperation lacks, the attitude of each decision factor at local level becomes a break in sustaining the genesis' processes of some coherent metropolitan areas, where the benefits of collaboration are reciprocal. The concrete situation of unsound cooperation within new metropolitan areas of Romania and the experience in promoting the dialogue between the representatives of local communities and of the city, determined us to propose to manage these areas by means of a type of integrated collaboration management, where consensus is the fundamental principle. This type of management may win the reciprocal trust of those who manage each community from the metropolitan areas and leaves free space to the display of enterprise spirit (Harvey 1989) in the unfolding of economic, social, cultural activities etc.A literature synthesisThe metropolitan area represented an important study subject for the sciences of territorial development during the last decades. The term of emergent metropolitan area was used by Elliot and Perry (1965), who contradicted classical theories regarding the role of the processes of population concentration in the development of new cities and showed that these processes were secondary, reported to the economic processes. Researches demonstrated contradictory processes of structuring/destructuring of metropolitan areas, which took more and more sophisticated spatial shapes. Historical incursion within the metropolitan apparition and development shows a tight connection between this and the dynamics of the production system (Scott 1982). The transition to the fordist economy, where large metropolitan areas were functioning as key elements of mass production towards the post-fordist economy, meant the industry's transfer outside these and the transition to a new type of economy, characterised by a large flexibility. The new cognitive-cultural economy encouraged processes of locational convergence (Scott 2008). Despite the fact distance seems to have disappeared (Hall 1999), digital revolution and telecommunications revolution re-evaluate the importance of geographical proximity in localising the actors who produce knowledge. The effects are visible in the new forms of urbanisation which are registered by such a diverse world at planetary scale, as the urban world.For the economies in transition from centralised systems to the market economy, it seems that some of the development stages are known by American and West-European economies as skipped or crossed with a very high speed. The impact of the new economy facilitates the almost instantaneous transition from the mass industrial production, extensive, to the new types of activities dominated by the superior tertiary (finances-banks, insurances, IT, research and higher education), by means of which the creative capacities of the employees are valorised. Unlike advanced states, the new types of economic activities revitalize less the town centres and more the suburbs, and especially their metropolitan space, in the countries with an emergent economy (Ianos 2004).Starting from the case of large cities from Romania, which did not know the classical process of suburbanisation (Nicolae 2002), and being declared closed towns for a few decades, and where economic-social and cultural relationships were dictated from the centre, the accelerated urbanisation around them determined a chaotic expansion of built space (residential, commercial, logistics, IT, productive activities). …

The metropolisation phenomenon is one of the globalisation's result that transform urban areas and their social relations. In the process of globalisation some of the largest metropolitan areas become a plot where global nets cross, concentrating decision making, capital, and innovation that propel the global economic system. Intensification of flows and multiplication of interactive systems in some urban areas is one outcome of metropolisation. New interactive systems appear in yet unknown spatial configurations connecting the most remote placed on the Earth. Those systems also create new schemes in objective and subjective dimension linking actors functioning so far at a great distance in the spheres that were not subjected to exchange. The multiplication of interactive systems in the metropolitan area produces both positive and negative results of the metropolisation. According to Raymond Boudon's conception of action's systems, the positive consequences of the metropolisation might be referred to as functional interactive systems where spatial coexistence of actors leads to information exchange, learning processes, and cooperation. The metropolisation has, however, also its negative side effects having the Boudon's system of interdependence. These are different kinds of unintended and dysfunctional aggregation effects of individual's activities that cause specific ecological, financial, and political. Suburbanisation and cities shrinking as well as waste management, public transport and social pathology can be mentioned. The awareness of dualism of the metropolisation consequences and the will to limit its side effects lead to a search for proper institutional solutions. These institutions form metropolitan area management structures that are to transform coexistent interactive systems into functional systems, minimising at the same time the negative consequences of the metropolisation. France is a state where these kind of institutional structures take the form of public units of inter-communal cooperation (EPCI). Although there are many drawbacks concerning its territorial inadequacy to functional metropolitan areas, they play an important role in its management fostering its development. The territorial reform prepared in 2010 in France was to create another generation of such an institutional structure leading to the empowerment of metropolitan area providing its sustainable development. Many factors made the reform much less ambitious than its initial projects.

The literature shows that inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) is essential to address collective action problem. Previous studies have extensively discussed the relationship between IMC and economic outcomes, but the relationship between IMC and environmental outcomes is understudied. In five chapters (introductory chapter, three empirical chapters and a concluding chapter), this thesis contributes to the literature by broadly addressing the question “How does IMC impact environmental outcomes, and under which conditions can it emerge in metropolitan areas?”. In answering the question, varied methodological approaches (regression analysis, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and game theory) are used.Three core research and policy contributions emerge. First, while cities are unilaterally taking on the climate change mantle, the findings indicate that it is worthwhile for scholars and practitioners to continue advocating a coupling of local thinking with global and national scales of action in order to secure a reduction in negative environmental outcomes. Secondly, the thesis highlights that accounting for contextually defined incentives such as finances in the African context and other political realities remains critical to IMC success. Lastly, this thesis suggests that, although not easy, both personal and collective gains in ensuring IMC around environmental challenges can be realised.

Las reformas metropolitanas ponen en evidencia la existencia de visiones dispares sobre el municipio y los mecanismos de gobierno de las áreas metropolitanas, teorizadas bajo cuatro corrientes (escuelas de la reforma y de la elección racional, perspectivas neo-regionalista y rescalar). En este artículo analizamos, mediante el caso de Montreal, cómo los actores se apropian de éstas visiones y se movilizan para defender su ideal metropolitano. Las estrategias y valores ante las reformas metropolitanas no se producen en el vacío sino que están condicionadas por las normas del sistema político e institucional. Así, la capacidad de influencia de los actores en las reformas está marcada por las reglas del juego político, que favorecen y legitiman las ideas de unos grupos por encima de otros, Metropolitan reforms highlight the existence of disparate views on local government and metropolitan governance. They have been theorized as four schools of thought (reform, public choice, neo-regionalism and rescaling). In this paper we analyze, through the case of Montreal, how actors appropriate these ideas and mobilize to defend their metropolitan vision. Strategies and values ​​regarding metropolitan reforms do not occur in a vacuum but are conditioned by the rules of the political and institutional system. Thus, the ability of stakeholders to influence the reforms is shaped by the rules of the political game, which favor and legitimize the ideas of some groups at the expense of others

The paradigm of analysis of the reality and its management, based on vertical hierarchic structures, cannot be used to characterize situations of resources concentration in the hands of many social actors. Nowadays, the paradigm seems to be less popular. First scientifi c diagnoses of the described situations seemed to prove their chaotic and ungovernable character, but they were gradually replaced with approaches which allowed to penetrate and govern composed systems. The notion of ‘governance’ (i.e. a multi-layered network process whose participants have different statuses and resources, and which results in a consensus achieved in an interactive play of all partners) has a high heuristic value. France is a perfect illustration of this phenomenon. The process can be observed especially in metropolitan areas that create their own compounded authority systems.

In the beginning of the 20th century, many states in the USA, and especially California among them, implemented semi-direct democracy instruments that were directly inspired by the 1848 Swiss constitution—referendum, popular initiative, recall–to fight extensive corruption and nepotism. After a first rush, the use of these instruments remained of low intensity, until the last decades. In California, as well as in Switzerland, initiatives and referendums drastically gained in popularity, exactly while both states were experiencing a strong trend of metropolitanization. This trend, through the upscaling of urban systems and lifestyles, changes the political patterns of urban areas. The use of local initiatives is strongly correlated with both density and diversity at municipal level, what Jacques Lévy identifies as the urban gradient. During the last decades, they have shifted towards regulation of growth and land-use. I argue that we also see a correlation with the fragmentation of metropolitan areas. More fragmented areas, like San Francisco in California and Zürich in Switzerland, experience more local direct democracy. This result demonstrates the tendency of local direct democracy to localize policy-making, preventing its upscaling at the metropolitan level. Two hypothesis can be drawn. Initiatives can be viewed as a fix for bad politics in large constituencies where aggregation of voter preferences can not be achieved through representative democracy. But they also can be interpreted as the sign of a vivid democratic public sphere.