ABSTRACT
Sustainable growth depends upon meeting personal and environmental needs as well as conventional requirements for physical infrastructure. Building sustainable institutional capacity for strategic planning at regional and subregional levels involves strengthening the processes of institutional development and counter-acting the processes of institutional decline. The institutional arenas for dealing with these issues had been the West Midlands Forum of County Councils at the regional level and the West Midlands Metropolitan County Council at conurbation level. The effectiveness of metropolitan arrangements for delivery of the new transport planning agenda has been the subject of recent research. The case study of the West Midlands demonstrates the significance of the shared institutional capital of the metropolitan districts in taking a national lead. The informal structures for voluntary metropolitan collaboration have proved more effective than the formally-constituted Metropolitan County Council, and this has fed through to the regional level.
