ABSTRACT
Migration movements - one of the most important flows in our times - increasingly shape and challenge the internal viability of cities. Many tasks traditionally associated with state regulation and public action, first of all the provision of goods that were considered as public goods like public and social security, infrastructure and basic services, education and rule enforcement are increasingly being transferred to non-state agencies, to private provisions and to individual actors. Metropolitan areas function as the centres and gateways of global business, and social relations. Global flows need to originate, to be channelled, and to arrive somewhere. City regions are the nodes and hubs of these flows. The decentralization of economic decision-making in the framework of national economies is a phenomenon related to, but not identical with privatization. Administrative devolution can be seen independent from fiscal decentralization, and both may differ from political evolutions downwards. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
