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.

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.

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.

City-regions are areas where the daily journeys for work, shopping and leisure frequently cross administrative boundaries. They are seen as engines of the national economy, but are also facing congestion and disparities. Thus, all over the world, governments attempt to increase problem-solving capacities in city-regions by institutional reform and a shift of functions. This book analyses the recent reforms and changes in the governance of city-regions in France, Germany and Italy. It covers themes such as the impact of austerity measures, territorial development, planning and state modernisation. The authors provide a systematic cross-country perspective on two levels, between six city-regions and between the national policy frameworks in these three countries. They use a solid comparative framework, which refers to the four dimensions functions, institutions and governance, ideas and space. They describe the course of the reforms, the motivations and the results, and consequently, they question the widespread metropolitan fever or resurgence of city-regions and provide a better understanding of recent changes in city-regional governance in Europe. The primary readership will be researchers and master students in planning, urban studies, urban geography, political science and governance studies, especially those interested in metropolitan regions and / or decentralisation. Due to the uniqueness of the work, the book will be of particular interest to scholars working on the comparative European dimension of territorial governance and planning. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

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.

In recent years, the financialization of housing has become a major challenge to many cities across the globe, not the least because it tends to favor the interests of global finance over the needs of residents. Based on three case studies in the city regions of Zurich, Birmingham and Lyon, the present investigation analyzes the interplay of housing governance and policies over the past 20 years against the backdrop of the financialization of housing.

This book highlights the discontinuities and the ongoing development of the urban question in policy-making in the context of the controversial current issues of global reversal and regional revival. It critically examines contemporary public policies and practices at the urban, regional and national scales in order to offer a timely contribution to the debate on the significance of the urban dimension and interpretation in terms of the theory, policy and practice of social-spatial research in the twenty-first century. Focusing on Europe, it explores the current urban policy agendas at different scales - and the mobility of those agendas -, their implications, contradictions and controversies. It brings together original contributions from multiple disciplines but with an urban perspective, including empirical case studies and critical discussions of the following topics: the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the global “New Urban Agenda” as part of the Habitat III process; the Urban Agenda for the European Union; national spatial policies related to urban agendas; urban agendas at regional/urban levels; city regionalism discourse and state rescaling; new formal regional and metropolitan governments as a solution (or problem); the role of new actors in regional urbanization dynamics; multi-level governance processes in developing an urban agenda; informal assemblages at the metropolitan scale aiming at constructing the urban concept and dimension. Given its scope, the book is of interest to urban, regional and EU policy-makers, scholars and students working in the fields of urban geography, urban studies, EU urban and regional policies, and planning.