ABSTRACT
There has been much discussion in recent academic and policy debates about the significance of the ‘urban region’ as a focus of governance and about the emergence of
new forms of governance. In Western Europe, some strands of policy debate promote the significance of cities and urban regions as key actors in a new economic and political space of weakened and fragmenting nation states and stronger global economic forces. Some academic analysts relate this to the search for new modes of regulation resulting from changes in the dynamics of capitalist economies (Harvey 1989; Jessop 2000). Others emphasise the diversity of urban situations and experiences, and the uneven development of a capacity for city and urban region ‘governance’ (Bagnasco and Le Galès 2000a). It is widely recognised that the modes of governance that emerge in urban areas vary substantially in both their internal dynamics and the way responses are made to outside pressures. The promotion of an urban-region perspective in policy development is an example of a general idea attempting an organisation of this diversity and contingency. Experiences in developing spatial strategies with real power to influence urban development trajectories provide a rich laboratory for exploring the challenges and tensions of developing new arenas and forms of governance. This book is therefore a contribution to the debates on emerging governance forms and the potentiality of the ‘urban region’ (or ‘city region’ or ‘metropolitan region’) as a focus of political and policy attention (Lefèvre 1998; Salet et al. 2003).
